OPPORlUlSllir IN 
THE WEST INDIES 





Qass_ 
Book- 



OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE WEST INDIES 



Those who intend to lead a Study Circle in 
this book are asked to apply for an Enrolment 
Card to the Secretary ^ Study Department, 
S.P.G., 15 Tufton Street, Westminster, S.W., 
from whom ^Assignments,' price id,, and 
^ Suggestions to Leaders* price 2^., may he 
obtained. 





INDIAN HOUSE AND GROUP OF AKAWOIS INDIANS 






OUR OPPORTUNITY 

IN 

THE WEST INDIES 



BY 

BENJAMIN G. O'RORKE, M.A. 

CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES 



ILLUSTRATED 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

Sf>ajelg for tl^e ^rcpagatbn oi t^t §oBi^tl vx ^oxti^n ^nxis 

TUFTON STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 
1913 



4o1^ B3 



\ 



u«.\? 4 3 



0^ 



i 



NOTE 

This book, which is intended primarily for the use of 
Missionary Study Circles, deals chiefly with the work 
of the Anghcan Church in the West Indies and British 
Guiana. Each chapter has been read and (with the 
consent of the writer) revised by a committee composed 
of persons who have had experience in the conduct of 
Study Circles. The responsibility for the issue of 
the book, as it now appears, belongs to the Society 
by which it is published. 

In the production of the illustrations the Society 
acknowledges its indebtedness to Mr. A. E. Aspinall 
the Secretary of the West Indian Committee, Sir Isaac 
Pitman & Sons, Messrs. G. Duckworth & Co., and the 
Church Missionary Society. 

S.P.G. Editorial Secretary. 
December 1913. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. The discovery of the land 

II. In the days of slavery ... 

III. Jamaica ...... 

IV. The Bahamas and Central America 
V. Barbados and the Windward Islands 

VI. Antigua, British Guiana, and Trinidad 

Index ...... 



24 
43 

65 

89 

III 

135 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Christopher Columbus 
General Codrington . 
Map of the West Indies . 
A typical scene in Jamaica 
William Wilberforce 
Thomas Clarkson 
T. FowELL Buxton 
After the earthquake: St. 
Church, Kingston, Jamaica 
Two Church workers in the W 
Bishop Lipscomb 
Bishop Nuttall 
Bishop Rawle . 
Bishop Austin . 
Nassau sponge market 
Raking salt 
Salt ready for carting 
The old Church at Long Bay, 
Boy scouts, Limon, Honduras 
Making the Panama Canal 
Codrington College, Barbados 
Orinoco Indians 
The Mission House, Eupukari 
Breaking cocoa in Trinidad 



vois Indians 


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OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE 
WEST INDIES 

CHAPTER I 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 

Our opportunity in the West Indies. How Christopher 
Columbus would have envied it ! His opportunity 
had to be created, besought on bended knee, waited for 
during seventeen discouraging years. But at last it 
came. Picture the daring pioneer as he stands on 
the shore ready to embark from the coast of Spain with 
his 120 companions. They have made their confession, 
received the Sacrament, and the tiny squadron is waiting 
to carry them off to the great unknown. We will leave 
them there for a while. 

Columbus, tall, dignified, muscular ; with hair 
white at the early age of thirty ; with face freckled and 
ruddy ; with an aquihne nose and the mien of a deter- 
mined pioneer, and yet, withal, gifted with a manner 
kindly and persuasive — such was the man who was de- 
stined to electrify the world. Tradition has it that he was 

(4 M (i) O. 19747) 9 



10 THE WEST INDIES 

born about 1436, at Genoa, the son of a wool-carder. A 
sailor from the age of fifteen, he early became possessed 
with the idea that, the world being a sphere, India could 
be reached by boldly turning the prow due westwards. 
He made his plans carefully and sought a patron to 
equip him with an expedition to carry them out. He 
sent his brother Bartholomew to lay the scheme before 
Henry VII of England, while he himself worked and 
begged his way first to John II of Portugal and then 
to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The two latter 
kept him in suspense for five years before undertaking 
what appeared so visionary a project. 

The sea has perils enough to-day, even for a Dread- 
nought or a Titanic, but in those early days, great as 
were the real dangers, the imaginary were greater. 
Columbus had but a conjectural map and an unreliable 
compass. It seemed to men as wild a quest as it would 
be at the present day for an airman to launch forth in 
search of a distant star. Three ships were placed at his 
disposal, provisioned for one year. They were of small 
size, probably not more than 100 tons burden each. 
The vessel, the Santa Maria, which" Columbus himself 
commanded, was the only one of the three decked 
throughout, and her full strength was sixteen persons. 
The other two were light barques, called caravels, and 
were decked fore and aft but not amidships, the stem 
and stern rising high in the water. The total number 
of adventurers who made up the expedition was 120, 
as we have seen. A special pardon was granted to 
persons under sentence taking service on so. hazardous 
a voyage, consequently the majority of the crew con- 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND ii 

sisted of criminals and runaway debtors — the only 
volunteers Columbus was able to obtain. 



The first voyage 

We return now to the shore where the anchors were 
weighed, August 3, 1492. It was a Friday, a day, as it 
proved, of happy omen. They steered for the Canary 
Islands, and thence — westward, but whither ? Days 
were to come when all but the leader would give way to 
despair. More than once the crew were tempted to throw 
the Admiral, as they now called Columbus, overboard, 
and return with the tale that he fell into the sea while 
gazing at the stars. At last, however, one happy night 
Columbus caught sight of a light glimmering in the 
distance, and next morning one of the party saw land. 
An old historian discerned in this Ught in the midst of 
darkness an emblem of the spiritual light about to be 
introduced among the barbarous inhabitants. 

Land 

The landing was a red-letter day in the annals of 
history, and was worthily celebrated. It was on 
October 12, 1492 — again a Friday — that Columbus, 
clad in armour, over which hung a crimson scarf, landed 
on the island, accompanied by the captains of the other 
two vessels. He held aloft the royal banner of Spain, 
while a crowd of simple islanders looked on in amaze- 
ment. His first act on touching land was to fall down 
on his knees, kiss the earth, and render thanks to God 



12 THE WEST INDIES 

with tears of joy. Then, rising, he drew his sword, 
took possession of the island in the name of the Spanish 
raonarchs, and called it San Salvador, in gratitude for 
his dehverance from the sea. It is situated in the 
Bahamas, and its native name was Guanahani.^ 

The inhabitants 

What sort of people were the inhabitants ? Let 
the Admiral himself tell us the impression they made 
upon him : 

' Because they had much friendship for us, and 
because I knew that they were people that would dehver 
themselves better to the Christian faith, and be con- 
verted more through love than force, I gave them some 
coloured caps and some strings of glass beads, and 
many other things of little value, with which they 
were delighted, and were so entirely ours that it was a 
marvel to see. The same afterwards came swimming to 
the ship's boats and brought us parrots, cotton threads 
in balls, darts, and many others things, and bartered 
them with us for things which we gave them. In fine, 
they took and gave all of whatever they had with good- 
will.' Then he goes on to say that they were well 
made, their hair straight like horsehair, their colour 
yellow ; and that they painted themselves, being 
entirely naked. They carried no arms, and seemed not 
to understand the use of them. He concludes his 
description of them by saying they ought to make good 

1 Its present name according to tradition is Cat Island ; but 
some say it was V^atling Island at which Columbus first touched, 
a place which derives its name from a notorious buccaneer. 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 13 

servants, probably meaning slaves ; but he adds that 
they would be easy to convert to the Christian faith, 
for they quickly repeated all that was said to them, and 
appeared, at first, to have no creed of their own. 

And what impression, on the other hand, did these 
strange beings make upon the natives ? At first, they 
thought that they had issued from the deep during 
the night. On second thoughts, when they beheld 
them closely, with their ghttering steel and booming 
guns, they decided they must have descended from 
above, armed with thunder and hghtning. On a 
still closer acquaintance they once more changed their 
minds, as we shall see. 

The islands themselves — for they found there were 
many — were sublimely beautiful, and the Spaniards 
made two important discoveries upon them. They 
found the inhabitants indulging in a ' fumigation ' of 
a pecuHar kind ; they imbibed smoke into the mouth 
through a charred stick.^ It was caused by burning 
certain herbs wrapped in a dry leaf, called ' tabaco.' 
Las Casas, the historian, mentions that the natives 
said it took away fatigue, and that he had known 
Spaniards adopt the same habit, who, when reproved, 
rephed that it was not in their power to leave it off. 
' I do not know,' he adds naively, ' what savour or profit 
they found in them.' Financially and commercially his 
nation found immense profit in this discovery ; far more, 
indeed, than in the other discovery — namely, the 
existence of gold mines. 

1 This stick was shaped like a catapult, the forked ends being 
inserted in the nostrils. 



14 THE WEST INDIES 

' Indians ' and the West Indies 

Proceeding southwards, the Admiral touched at 
Cuba, which he was confident was the main land of 
India. Hence he began to call the natives of the islands 
' Indians/ a name which has clung to them ever since. 
Hence, too, the islands themselves came to be known as 
' West Indies/ ^ His next discovery was the island of 
Hayti, to which he gave the name of Hispaniola, on 
account of its resemblance to the more beautiful pro- 
vinces of Spain. It proved to be a central point of the 
whole of the New World, and a base for future discovery 
and conquest. Here he was received with the utmost 
cordiaHty by the cacique, or chief, Guacanagari, whose 
innate gentleness and goodness of heart were character- 
istic of the inhabitants as a whole. A touching exhibi- 
tion of this trait was given when on Christmas Day 
Columbus was wrecked on the cacique's coast. The 
natives, instead of seizing the chance of looting, went 
out in their canoes and lent assistance to the white 
men. The cacique himself stood guard over the rescued 
goods. Columbus, who was moved to the heart, thus 
expresses himself : ' They are a loving, uncovetous 
people, so docile in all things, that I assure your High- 
nesses I beheve in all the world there is not a better 
people, or a better country ; they love their neigh- 
bours as themselves, and they have the sweetest and 
gentlest way of talking in the world, and always with 
a smile.' 

^ Their other name, * Antilles,' was given them because 
Columbus on his arrival was supposed to have reached the 
fabled country of Antilla, which found an uncertain place on old 
maps of the world. 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 15 

The first settlement 

Having found * such goodwill and such gold/ the 
Admiral resolved to establish a settlement there. He 
regarded the loss of his vessel as providential, ordained 
in order that the true faith might be preached in that 
country. With the timber of the wreck he built a fort, 
and, leaving behind forty of his men, he set sail for Spain. 
He bade these men keep continually in mind the opinion 
the natives had hitherto formed of them — namely, that 
they had dropped down in their midst direct from heaven. 
Let them not undeceive their unsophisticated minds. 
In his desire to preserve a good understanding with 
the natives, Columbus reminds us of David Livingstone. 
As for the forty men left behind, we are told that 
they were the pick of the expedition. Alas, for the 
remainder of them ! 

Home again 

A wonderful reception awaited Columbus when he 
reached Spain on March 15, 1493 (a Friday once more), 
after an absence of seven months and a half. Such a 
triumphal procession had seldom, if ever, been seen. 
Did he not carry in trail behind him not human captives 
but the sea and its terrors and dread of the fabled 
' Beyond ' ? A ' Te Deum ' fitly closed the day. He 
had brought back nine natives to teach them the 
Spanish language and the Christian faith, so that they 
might return as interpreters to the Spaniards, and as 
missionaries to their heathen kinsmen. One of them 
died shortly after his baptism, and, according to the 



i6 THE WEST INDIES 

belief of the age, was held to be the first of the New 
World to enter heaven. 

II 

The second voyage 

Columbus had been only six months in Spain when 
he was ready to embark again. There was no need this 
time to hold out inducements to volunteers. It was 
an honour, the chance of a hfetime. The 1500 who made 
up the party expected, every man of them, to come 
back laden with riches. They took in addition twelve 
missionaries, under the charge of a Benedictine monk, 
Bernard Buil, specially appointed by the Pope. 

It was not likely that so large a body of men, whose 
chief trait was ambition, would take kindly to the leader- 
ship of one whom they regarded as an upstart foreigner. 
Indeed, before they sailed we find them quick to magnify, 
and even to manufacture, trifling grievances. 

Fresh discoveries 

The journey was none the less a successful one. 
In less than two months they sighted an island. It 
being a Sunday they gave it the name of Dominica. 
Proceeding, they discovered and christened Maria 
Galante and then Guadaloupe. In the latter island 
they found human flesh roasting at a camp fire, and 
learnt that the natives were cannibals. These proved 
to be the ferocious race of Caribs. Columbus had now 
reached the beautiful cluster of islands called the Antilles 
which form a semicircle in the Caribbean Sea. Passing 
and naming Montserrat, Antigua, St. Martin, Santa 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 17 

Cruz, San Juan (afterwards called Porto Rico), and 
The Virgin Islands they arrived at Hispaniola. 

The fate of the settlement 

How eagerly they looked out for a welcome from 
the forty stalwarts left behind, and for news of their 
doings ! But there was no answering call from the fort 
as they approached it, and the fort itself was a ruin. 
On landing their suspicions were confirmed. The 
whole colony had been exterminated. Not a man 
survived to tell the tale. They soon learnt that when 
the restraining hand of Colimibus had gone, the colonists 
had thrown all self-control to the winds, and by their 
licentious conduct had converted their friendly hosts 
into vindictive enemies, who, in desperation, had rid 
the island of their presence. Such is the story of the 
first European settlement in the New World. 

This was a bad beginning, and the sequel w^as w^orse. 
The new-comers had arrived, not to work for their daily 
bread, but merely to pick up gold and live at ease. 
They expected to find gold on the seashore, and food 
awaiting them in every field. They found that neither 
the one nor the other was to be had without strenuous 
toil. Columbus shared the common disappointment. 
A proposal was now seriously mooted to enrich them- 
selves and their sovereigns by estabhshing a traffic in 
human beings. In his anxiety to pay the expenses of 
the colony and to provide a revenue for the crown, 
he recommended that the cannibals of the Caribbean 
islands should be captured and sold as slaves, or ex- 
changed with merchants for Hve stock and other 



i8 THE WEST INDIES 

necessaries of life ; and it should be remembered that 
Columbus was fully convinced that the benefits of this 
scheme would be mutual, nay, perhaps the advantage 
m his eyes lay all on the side of the savage ; for was it 
not a cheap price for them to pay for the privilege of 
Christian instruction ? Moreover, they would represent 
souls rescued from perdition. It should also be borne in 
mind that the times in which he lived afforded an excuse 
for his action, since public opinion did not frown on 
slavery then as it does now. 

Arawaks and Caribs 

Columbus modified his opinion with regard to the 
peaceable qualities of the Arawaks, as the islanders 
at Hispaniola were called. He found them to be 
capable of showing fight when aroused by their fierce 
neighbours the Caribs. Yet, generally speaking, they 
were mild and gentle.^ Their religious behef was of a 
simple nature. They believed in one Supreme Being 
Who lived above them somewhere beyond the sky, 
immortal, omnipotent, and invisible. They prayed to 
Him, sending their prayers by messenger spirits called 
zemes. Each cacique, each tribe, and each individual 
had a particular zeme as a guardian angel. A warrior 
when preparing for battle would bind an image of his 
zeme upon his forehead as a charm against danger. 
To lose this image spelt terrible misfortune to the owner, 
and his luck could not turn until he recovered it or 
stole one from someone else. These people had their 

1 It is supposed that Robinson Crusoe's Friday was an 
Arawak who had escaped from the Caribs in Trinidad. 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 19 

own tradition concerning the origin of the world. They 
taught how man first made his appearance scrambhng 
out of a cave, the tall men out of a large hole, and the 
small from a crevice in the rock. One poor man, so 
ran the story, stayed out too long fishing and was changed 
into a bird, whose plaintive note was still to be heard, 
and Columbus mistook it for the nightingale. They 
had their own tale, too, of the deluge ; and as to a future 
Hfe, they held that the spirits of men after death were 
reunited; in shady regions, amidst unspeakable delightSi 
to the spirits of those they loved best on earth. 

The discovery of Jamaica 

Resuming his travels on May 3, 1493, Columbus 
discovered Jamaica. Two days before he reached it 
he was charmed with the sight of the blue mountains 
and the majestic forests. He described the natives as 
more ingenious and more warlike than those of Cuba 
and Hispaniola. He was much struck with their canoes, 
hollowed out of a single tree,^ one of which measured 
ninety-six feet. He was, however, disappointed in his 
hopes of finding gold. He sailed round the island, and 
on the banks of one of the rivers a solemn Mass was 
celebrated. The cacique wished to accompany him to 
Spain, but was not permitted to do so. 

The gold of that land 

And now the Admiral's health broke down. Return- 
ing to Hispaniola he found his colony thoroughly dis- 

^ Generally a silk-cotton tree. 

B 2 



20 THE WEST INDIES 

organised during his absence, and the natives decimated 
through the skirmishes which had taken place between 
them and the Spaniards. The plots against his own 
authority had reached a crisis and caused his return to 
Spain, where he arrived, after an absence of two years 
and a half, in March 1496. He was able to make the bare 
announcement that gold had been discovered ; and, as 
if by way of proof, a facetious captain of one of his 
vessels gave out that he had actually brought home 
' gold in bars,' But when his cargo was examined it 
was found to consist of Indians confined within bars, 
whose sale would eventually realise gold ! His country- 
men were too much disappointed to appreciate this 
pleasantry. 

A profitable exchange 

Two incidents which occurred about this time throw 
light upon life in the West Indies. In the first place, 
300 slaves reached Spain from Hispaniola in 1496 ; 
and in 1497 Hispaniola became the dumping-ground 
for Spanish criminals. In other words, free men were 
dispatched to the Christian country for slavery, and 
jail-birds to the savage land for freedom. The exchange 
was characteristic of the age. 

A loyal friend 

The other incident was a happier one. A rebellion 
had taken place under the leadership of Guarionex, a 
cacique. It was soon quelled, and Guarionex was made 
a prisoner. He fled for refuge to the territory of 
Maiobonex, a highland cacique. Thereupon Bartholo- 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 21 

mew Columbus, brother of the Admiral, went in pursuit, 
and intimated to Maiobonex that he had no quarrel with 
him provided that he gave up the fugitive. This, 
however, he bravely declined to do, and proved himself 
a veritable Jonathan to his David. Nor would he 
relent even when his villages were burnt over his head. 
His own people besought him to yield, but his loyalty 
to his friend was stronger than his love of freedom, of 
home, and of life itself. Guarionex sought to solve 
the difficulty by fleeing from his protection. The two 
caciques were at last captured and confined together in 
the same prison. 

Natives capable of such gallantry were not lacking 
in the highest qualities. 

Ill 
The third voyage 

All this was happening while Columbus was in Spain. 
In May 1498 he began his third voyage. On July 31 from 
the mast-head of his ship were descried three mountains 
rising above the horizon. ' La Trinidad ! ' said Columbus, 
with a reference to the Holy Trinity, and the island has 
borne that name ever since. Continuing, on Wednesday, 
August I, he beheld for the first time the continent of 
America.^ He supposed it to be another island, and 
gave it the name of Zeta. He was not long, however, in 
reaching the conclusion that the land must be a continent, 

^ He was not the first, however, to sight the mainland, 
Sebastian Cabot having discovered the northern continent in 
1497. The continent derives its name from a Florentine 
merchant, Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed thither in 1499. 



22 THE WEST INDIES 

that it was indeed the shore of the earthly Paradise, 
and that the River Orinoco was one of the four great 
rivers which water the garden of Eden. He erected 
a great cross on the shore and claimed it in the name of 
Christ and of his royal patrons, as was his wont 
everywhere. 

Columbus had now ceased to be the idol of Spain. 
Accusations from the West Indies, minghng with 
jealousies in the homeland, led to his downfall. In 
1500 he found himself superseded, and was sent home — 
in chains — he who in Tennyson's words had ' unchained 
the Atlantic sea for all the world to come.' Much as 
they chafed his flesh, they galled his heart still more. 
Never again was he allowed to resume his authority in 
Hispaniola. When he returned westwards on a fresh 
expedition it was with instructions to give that island 
a wide berth. 

IV 

The last voyagfe 

In July 1502 he passed Jamaica, and sailed thence 
to the coast of Honduras. Turning southwards at Cape 
Gracios a Dios (which means, Thanks be to God), he 
searched for an outlet through the isthmus of Panama 
into the Indian ocean, but finding none shaped his 
course once more for Jamaica. Here he spent twelve 
anxious months, his ship having been wrecked, until 
by the gallantry of a loyal friend he was rescued. On 
November 7, 1504, the discoverer of the New World 
reached Spain in so sorry a pUght that the heart of 
his bitterest foe must have been touched. The only 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 23 

voyage which remained for him was to that land 
from whose bourne no traveller returns. Upon this 
he embarked on Ascension Day 1506, being about 
seventy years of age. 

It is fitting to begin our studies on the West Indies 
with the career of Columbus. He possessed the two 
great quahfications of vision and courage. He saw a 
great opportunity, and had the courage to embrace it. 
He built upon no other man's foundation, but laid 
foundations for other men to build upon. He looked to 
God for inspiration, and depended upon Him for guidance. 
At a banquet in his honour, a jealous courtier once 
asked him whether he thought that, in case he had not 
been the discoverer of the Indies, there would have 
been lacking men capable of the enterprise. Taking an 
egg, he invited the company to make it stand upon one 
end. When they failed he quietly took it, dented one 
end, and left it standing on the broken part ; illustrating 
in this simple manner that when he had once shown 
the way to the New World, nothing was easier than to 
follow it. 

BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

Life of Christopher Columbus.' 
' The Church in Greater Britain.' Chapter VI. G. R. Wynne. 

(S.P.G. 15. td, net). 
' The West Indies and the Spanish Main.' James Rodway. 

(Story of the Nations Series. Unwin. ^s.) 
* Historical Geography of the British Colonies.' Vol. II. The 

West Indies. C. P. Lucas. (Clarendon Press. 7s. 6d.) 
Historical Sketch, The West Indies. (S.P.G. i^.) 
'Life of Las Casas.' A. Helps. (G. Bell. is. net.) 
*On Sea and Land.' H. W. Case. (Morgan and Scott.) 
*The British West Indies.' A. E. Aspinall. (Pitman, js. 6d. net.) 



CHAPTER II 

IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 

On their discovery by Christopher Columbus, the islands 
of the West Indies were naturally claimed as Spanish 
possessions. But one by one they have been taken 
from, or have revolted from, the Spanish throne ; and 
now they are either independent or have become colonies 
of other nations. Cuba and Hayti, the largest of the 
group, are independent republics ; Porto Rico, the next 
in size, is an American colony ; Guadeloupe and 
Martinique are French ; St. Thomas and a few small 
islands are Danish ; St. Martin and four others belong 
to the Dutch. The remainder are Enghsh, namely, 
Jamaica, Trinidad (the fourth and fifth in size), 
Barbados, and the Bahamas ; the Windward Islands 
(St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and the Grenadines), 
the Leeward Islands (Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat, 
Nevis, St. Kitts, and the Virgin Islands), and many 
smaller islands. The Spaniards and the French have 
disputed our right time after time, except in the case of 
Barbados, and the inhabitants in the early days of 
colonisation must have been greatly puzzled at the 
frequency with which they changed masters. 

So much for our domains in the West Indies. We 
24 



IN THE DAYS OF SLA\TERY 25 

will now deal with our fellow-subjects there : what 
manner of men they are, how they came there, and how 
we have acted towards them. Our opportunity can best 
be considered after we have looked our obhgations in the 
face. The present races of black and coloured people 
are the descendants of those whom we shall describe in 
this chapter. 

The sugar-cane and the slave-trade 

Europeans sought in the West the fabled Eldorado, 
or lake of golden sands. Curiously enough, they brought 
their Eldorado with them, in the shape of the sugar- 
cane, which was originally introduced from the East 
by the Portuguese. It speedily created an industry on 
a large scale, and to work it the plantation system was 
adopted. It proved a bitter-sweet root, from which 
ahke the wealth and the misfortune of the islands have 
chiefly sprung ; for it involved another importation — 
labourers to work it. The white men were few, and 
unfitted by nature for the w^ork, the gentle Arawaks 
were physically weak, and the man-eating Caribs were 
too intractable. In the solution of the problem the 
Portuguese again led the way. On the continent of 
Africa they found labourers in abundance. Other 
nations — ourselves in particular — w^ere not slow in 
following their lead ; indeed, it must be acknowledged 
that for more than two centuries we were the chief 
slave-trading nation in Europe. Thus were the system 
of slavery and the trade in slaves introduced into the 
West Indies. 



26 THE WEST INDIES 



The history of slavery 

The origin of slavery, in the form in which we are 
concerned with it, dates back to 1442, when some Moors 
were brought as prisoners of war to Portugal. The 
celebrated Prince Henry promptly ordered them to be 
sent back, and in exchange for the Moors he was given 
' ten blacks and a quantity of gold dust/ Eventually 
a Papal bull was issued authorising the opening of a 
slave-market at Lisbon. The avarice of men was 
aroused, and ships were fitted out in pursuit of a traffic 
which had begun to prove lucrative. 

A few years later (1502) the Spaniards began to 
employ slaves in Hispaniola. At first this was for- 
bidden by the court, then it was officially authorised, 
and finally it was carried on at the instigation of a 
Bishop, the famous Las Casas, friend and protector 
of the Indians, of whom mention w^as made in our first 
chapter. His beloved Indians were so used to the 
enjoyment of liberty that servitude to them was intoler- 
able ; whereas in the case of the Africans, servitude 
made little difference to their traditional circum- 
stances : it involved a change of scene and a change of 
masters, but that was all. : 



England and the slave=trade 

In 1562 an Act of Parhament legahsed in England 
the purchase of negroes, and the first to avail himself 
of the Act was EHzabeth's noted admiral, John Hawkins. 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 27 

He sailed for Sierra Leone that very year, and ' got 
into his possession ' three hundred negroes, ' partly by 
the sword, and partly by other means.' He shipped 
them off to Hayti, where they were sold. He then 
returned to England, after ' a very prosperous voyage ' 
— in other words, a very wealthy man. He soon 
followed this by another prosperous voyage, the names 
of two of his ships being the Jesus and the John Baptist. 
* In regard to Hawkins,' says the temperate historian 
of the West Indies, Bryan Edw^ards (himself a holder of 
slaves) , * he was, I admit, a murderer and a robber. He 
made a third voyage to Africa for the same purpose, 
which, as the reader will not be sorry to find, terminated 
miserably, and put a stop for some years to any more 
piratical expeditions to the coast of x\frica.' 

As time went on, however, and Englishmen 
established plantations in the West Indies, royal 
charters were granted, first by James I, in 1618, and 
then by Charles I, in 1631, to commercial companies for 
the supply of slaves to those colonies. And when 
private adventurers began iUicitly to engage in the 
business, forts were erected on the west coast of Africa. 
There were forty or more, mostly British, the remains 
of which can be seen to this day. A third exclusive 
company had at its head the king's brother, the Duke 
of York. The last of these companies, chartered in 
1672, was dignified with the title of the Royal African 
Company, the king himself being a shareholder. With 
the Revolution in 1688, and the advent of WilHam and 
Mary, a change came over the situation. Exclusive 
companies of all kinds were abohshed, and the African 



28 THE WEST INDIES 

trade became free and open. It continued thus with 
but trifling modifications until, a century later, Wilber- 
force appeared upon the scene. What happened then 
we shall see in due course. 

During the two hundred years under review the 
number of slaves imported into British colonies exceeded 
2,000,000. At the close of the eighteenth century, 
shortly before the abolition of the slave-trade, the total 
population of the islands was computed to be 65,000 
whites and 455,000 blacks. Thus the blacks out- 
numbered the whites by seven to one. Every EngHsh- 
man of consequence had property in slaves at that time. 
In 1771 the following advertisement of an auction 
appeared in one of the newspapers : ' Two boxes of 
bottled cyder, six sacks of flour, three negro men, two 
negro women, two negro boys, one negro girl/ And the 
following is a bill of lading : ' Shipped by the grace of 
God, in good order and well-conditioned . . . twenty- 
four prime slaves, six prime women slaves, marked and 
numbered as in the margin,' with a reference to the 
marks branded on the body. 

Do we recoil with horror ? It is by no means certain 
that had we lived in those days we should not our- 
selves have been warm advocates of the ' trafiic,' as 
were many devoted Christians. Only a few could see 
any harm in it. Our own ' Good Queen Bess,' though 
not in favour of the trade, permitted Hawkins, when 
she knighted him, to adopt the disgusting crest of ' a 
negro manacled,' and CromweU, the Puritan, renewed 
the charter sanctioning the trade which he found in 
vogue. The Baptists and Moravians, communities 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 29 

renowned for their strictness, were on its side and were 
themselves slave-holders. Even the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel, when the Codrington Trust 
came into its hands, making it the ov/ners of hundreds 
of slaves, felt it more humane to retain and treat them 
well than to set them free. Little did people at home 
know what went on across the sea, or what kind of men 
they were who administered their affairs for them. 
The experiences of an English merchant, John Newton, 
who was engaged in a subordinate position in collecting 
slaves on the west coast, will throw a light upon the 
times and upon the narrative which is to follow. 

A notable slave-trader 

Newton, who had been brought up as a sailor, one 
day missed his ship, and was impressed into the Navy 
at a time when the French fleets were hovering round 
our coasts. Influence acquired for him the rank of 
midshipman, but he was speedily reduced, in the 
presence of the whole crew, for desertion. Eventually 
he found himself, in 1745, on the West African coast, 
where he entered the services of a slave merchant. 
Sick at heart and in body, ' my bed,' he wrote to a 
friend, ' was a mat spread upon a board or chest, and 
a log of wood was my pillow. When my fever left me 
I would gladly have eaten, but no one gave unto me. 
My distress at times was so great as to compel me to 
go by night and pull up roots in the plantation. . . . 
When my master returned, a brother-trader persuaded 
him that I was unfaithful, and that I stole his goods in 



30 THE WEST INDIES 

the night. This was ahnost the only vice I could not 
justly be charged with. However, I was condemned 
without evidence. From that time, whenever he left 
the vessel I was locked upon deck, with a pint of rice for 
my day's allowance. 

' My whole suit was a shirt and a pair of trousers, 
a cotton handkerchief instead of a cap, a cotton cloth 
about two yards long to supply the want of upper 
garments ; and thus accoutred, I have been exposed 
for twenty, thirty, and perhaps forty hours together, 
in incessant rains, without the least shelter, when my 
master was on shore.' Sad and alone, at the dead of 
night he would wash his one shirt on the rocks, putting 
it on wet that it might dry while he slept. When 
ashore, on the approach of a white man, he would hide 
himself in the woods for shame. 

At length he was found by a shipmaster who had 
sailed to West Africa with a commission to bring the 
prodigal home. Even then, nothing short of a made- 
up story, that a relative had left him a legacy, prevailed 
upon him to go. The ship which carried him home 
nearly foundered, and he, the Jonah on board, narrowly 
escaped the fate of Jonah. 

John Newton, the prodigal, hved to redeem those 
wanderings in the far country ; to become the friend 
and adviser of the champion whom God raised up to 
abolish the slave-trade ; and, still more wonderful, to 
be the inspired writer of the hymn^ ' How sweet the 
name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear.' ^ 

^ Other famous hymns by John Newton are Nos. 527, 545, 
551, in H3mins A. and M. 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 31 



The shipping of the slaves 

What of the slaves who passed through the hands 
of such as John Newton on the West Coast ? It was 
afhrmed, and with a certain amount of truth, that the 
future in store compared quite favourably with the past 
from which they had escaped, and that if they had not 
been sold as slaves they would have been slain as 
prisoners of war. Be that as it may, heart-rending 
accounts have come down to us of the sufferings on the 
voyage, from which death mercifully reheved from four 
to fifteen out of every hundred. 

This voyage across the Atlantic, from West Africa 
to the West Indies, was called the ' middle passage.' It 
is on record that a slave-ship lost fifty-five of its 
human cargo in seventeen days ; that they were stowed 
between decks under grated hatchways ; that they 
sat between one another's legs, with no possibiHty of 
changing their position day or night; and that their 
breasts were branded by a red-hot iron with the marks 
of their owners. 



The selling of the slaves 

When they arrived at their destination, being 
' wearied out with confinement at sea,' writes Bryan 
Edwards, who often witnessed the sight, ' they com- 
monly express great eagerness to be sold ; presenting 
themselves with cheerfulness and alacrity for selection, 
mortified and disappointed when refused.' 



32 THE WEST INDIES 

The treatment of the slaves 

The slave's lot and daily routine varied according 
to the tenderness or hardness of the master's heart, 
or that of his agent. At the best it was strenuous. 
At the worst his work continued for nineteen hours 
a day ; and at times, in the crop season, it might extend 
throughout the night. Slaves usually lived in wooden 
huts of irregular formation near their work. They 
were expected to raise their own pro\asions — a task 
to which their weekly ' day of rest ' was devoted. As 
for clothes, such as they required were doled out 
annually. 

They were not allowed to marry ; nor does the 
thought of marriage as a state to which they might or 
ought to aspire seem to have entered their heads. They 
were, of course, devoid of sluv elevating influences such 
as art and literature, or even of elementary education. 
Worse still, the consolation of the Christian rehgion 
was withheld from them. At a later date, earty in the 
nineteenth century, when missionaries were at work, 
one manager is reported to have put all his negroes 
in the stocks on Sunday, in order to prevent their 
attending chapel. 



Slavery and Christianity 

A writer named Ligon, in a contemporarj^ account 
of the early days of Barbados, mentions that he had a 
negro servant allotted to him, who asked him to make 
him a Christian. ' I promised,' saj^s Ligon, 'to do my best 
endeavour/ I spoke to the Master of the Plantation, 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 33 

and told him that poor Sambo desired much to be 
made a Christian. But his answer was that ' the 
people of that Hand were governed by the Laues of 
England, and by those Lawes we could not make a 
Christian a slave/ I told him that my request was 
far different from that, for I desired to make a slave a 
Christian. His answer was that ' it was true, there 
was a difference in that : But, being once a Christian, 
he could no m.ore account him a slave, and so lose the 
hold they had of them as slaves, by making them. 
Christians ; and by that means should open such a 
gap, as all the planters in the Hand would curse him. 
So I was struck dumb, and poor Sambo kept quite out 
of Church ; as ingenious, and as good a natur'd soul 
as ever wore black, or eat green ! ' 

If this negro was ingenious, so w^ere the planters in 
their invention of pleas to support such an argument as 
the above. They remind us of the modern objections to 
Missions which are common to-day. The one we have 
just quoted may be termed the theological argument : 
Christianity and slavery were incompatible. True, but 
then Christianity could be dispensed with, whereas 
slavery, of course, could not ! This was supported by 
the Biblical argument : were not the heathen neigh- 
bours of the ' chosen people ' to be trodden down and 
driven out, or at least converted into hewers of wood 
and drawers of water ? There was also the devotional 
argument : it was a slight upon Christian worship ; for 
Christianity could not be honoured by ' adding involun- 
tary proselytes,' and compulsory conversion they held 
to be a ' shameful hypocrisy.' And if this had an 



34 THE WEST INDIES 

uncertain sound on the lips of men like themselves, at 
any rate the industrial argument could not fail to go 
home : it might lead ' to notions of equality ' on the part 
of a slave towards his owner. Finally, for those to whom 
it might appeal (and they were many) there was the 
racial argument : that the negro, though he belonged 
to the goius man, did not belong to the same species 
as the white man, and that the hereditary rehgions of 
each were what Providence intended for them. A 
curious deduction was made from these premises, viz. 
that a slave could not give evidence in a court of law 
because he was not a Christian ! 

It was in the interests of the owners that their 
slaves were kept in good health ; just as a sportsman, 
with no particular fondness for animals, will see that 
his horses and dogs are not neglected. It is refreshing 
to read that women, childen, and the aged were often 
generously provided for, and that the planters could 
boast that they had no ' paupers.* 

n 

AbolitioJi of the slave-trade 

' When the tale of bricks is doubled, then appeareth 
Moses.' Man's extremity is God's opportunity. Theories 
that rose to heaven from beneath the tropical sun, and 
often from under the lash, were not in vain. When the 
eighteenth century drew to a close the day of Abolition 
was not far away. The agitation to put down the slavery 
extended over a period of fifty years, in which three land- 
marks stand out : one at each end, and one midway 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 35 

between. In 1783 the first Society for the abolition of 
the trade was estabUshed ; in 1807 came AboUtion — 
the half-way house, and in 1833 Emancipation, the 
crowning height in the uphill chmb. 

Abolition and Emancipation are often confused, 
and treated as though they were identical. So too 
are the terms Slave-trade and Slavery. The fact is 
that trade in slaves from Africa for the colonies was 
abolished more than twenty-five years before the slaves 
who were actually at work were emancipated. The 
narrative of the events in the campaign will help to 
make clear the distinction between the two words and 
the two epochs. 

The name of Granville Sharp, a clerk in a government 
office, is generally associated with the events which led 
up to the first step ; William Wilberforce was the hero 
of the second ; and Powell Buxton of the third. Other 
names which the world will never allow to be forgotten 
also figure conspicuously. Let us see how these brave 
men embraced their opportunity. Embraced it ! — 
let us rather say battled for it, wrenched it from 
unwilling hands ; and having grasped it clung to it 
till a victory was theirs, which was one of the most 
glorious in our annals. 

William Wilberforce 

Born in 1759, and educated at Cambridge, Wilber- 
force became a Member of ParUament at the age of 
twenty-one, as did also his friend Pitt, who was born in 
the same year. A few years later he was spending a 
hoUday in France, when a clergyman friend, Isaac 

02 



36 THE WEST INDIES 

Milner, saved him from falling over a precipice. The 
same friend was used by God to rescue him from faUing 
down another — a moral — precipice, towards which his 
popular traits and early habits seemed to be drawing 
him. ' Sitting up all night singing/ ' danced till five 
in the morning/ are fair samples of his Hfe, as chronicled 
in his diary, until he placed himself under Milner's 
guidance. The reading of Dodridge's ' Rise and 
Progess of Rehgion ' was the turning-point in his hfe ; 
and under a tree at Keston he dedicated his hfe to God, 
and in particular to the campaign against the traffic 
in human flesh and blood. From a child he had been 
opposed to it, but now, having ' entered into the hberty 
wherewith Christ makes His people free, he advanced 
from feehng to action.' ' Up early and prayed,' ' out 
before six, and made the fields my oratory,' are now 
entries in his diary. It was on Good Friday, 1786, 
in his twenty-seventh year, that he made his first 
Communion. Having put his hand to the plough he 
never looked back. 

At this time the spirit of rehgion slumbered in 
England. It was Wilberforce's ambition to do in the 
aristocratic circle what Wesley had accomphshed among 
the multitude. ' So you v/ish,' said a nobleman whose 
house he visited, ' to be a reformer of men's morals. 
Look then, and see what is the end of such reformers,' 
pointing as he spoke to a picture of the Crucifixion — 
the very scene that had inspired the crusade upon 
which he had now set out. 

The achievement of Granville Sharp, already 





WILLIAM WILBERFORCE 



THOMAS CLARKSON 




T. FOWELL BUXTON 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 37 

alluded to, was the obtaining of a pronouncement by 
the Lord Chief Justice that slavery in England was 
illegal. ' As soon as any slave sets his foot on English 
ground he becomes free.' This happened in 1772, but 
it had no effect whatever on the slave-trade abroad. 
In 1785 the subject for the Latin Essay at Cambridge 
was the question, ' Is it right to make slaves of others 
against their will ? ' The winner of the prize was 
Thomas Clarkson, who repubhshed his Essay in EngHsh, 
and it played no small part in the controversy of the 
next twenty years. 

When Wilberforce's conversion took place, he felt 
impelled to pay two visits. One was to his friend and 
parliamentary colleague, Pitt. 'He tried,' wrote Wil- 
berforce, ' to reason me out of my convictions, but soon 
found himself unable to combat their correctness.' 
Though they did not share Wilberforce's rehgious 
view^s, Pitt, Fox, and Burke became sturdy alHes in his 
campaign. 

The other visit was to John Newton ; to John 
Newton, whom we left, thirty-seven years back, a 
prodigal just returned from a slave-raiding career on the 
west coast of Africa. In the meantime he had become 
another man ; had given up the sea ; had taught him- 
self Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; had been ordained now 
for twenty-one years, and when Wilberforce called upon 
him was vicar of St. Mary Woolnoth, at the corner 
of Lombard Street. ' After walking about the square 
once or twice before I could persuade myself, I called 
upon old Newton — was much affected in conversing 



38 THE WEST INDIES 

with him — something very pleasing and unaffected in 
him/ so wrote Wilberforce in his diary. Newton con- 
firmed him in the project he had at heart, and his wise 
counsel helped to shape his policy for the future. 

The * white negroes ' 

A meeting of twelve men was held, of whom Granville 
Sharp was elected chairman, and of whom all but two 
were Quakers. Wilberforce soon became the leader of 
these patient, resolute men — ' white negroes ' as they 
were called — who were solemnly pledged to the cause of 
the slaves. 

Burke had already given some attention to the 
question, but, great statesman as he was, had abandoned 
all attempts to deal with it. ' There was no example 
upon record of any such achievement.' The hour 
awaited the man. 

The man was Wilberforce. He came forward with 
every advantage of rank and intellectual equipment, 
but, although young, he was not physically strong. 
All through his long life he had to battle with ill-health ; 
and it was in spite of the hindrances of a delicate con- 
stitution that his labours were perfomied. At this 
time the leading physicians of the day pronounced 
' that he had not the stamina to last a fortnight.' 

The slave-trade in Parliament 

In 1789 Wilberforce made his first great speech in 
the House of Commons on the subject. ' I came to 
town,' he wrote, ' sadly unfit for work, but was enabled 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 39 

to make my motion so as to give satisfaction — three 
hours and a half. I had not prepared my languacge, or 
even gone over all my matter, but being well acquainted 
with the whole subject I managed to get on/ 

' I managed to get on/ was his own verdict. Let 
us see what others had to say. ' It equalled anything 
he had heard in modern times/ was what Burke said of 
it, ' and was not perhaps to be surpassed in the remains 
of Grecian eloquence.' ' One of the ablest and most 
eloquent speeches that was ever heard in that or in any 
other place,' said Bishop Porteus of London. 

From Boswell we get a picture of the orator himself, 
at the age of twenty-five, speaking in the open air at a 
political meeting. ' I saw what seemed a mere shrimp 
mount upon the table ' (Wilberforce was very slight of 
stature) ; ' but, as I hstened, he grew, and grew, until 
the shrimp becam.e a whale.' 

The slave-holders were strong enough to get the 
matter postponed till after the examination of witnesses. 
The collection and marshalHng of facts kept Wilberforce 
and his friends fully occupied during the three years 
before the question came up again. For months he 
gave nine hours a day to the task. In 1791 the House 
again debated upon it. At this point a mxcmorable 
message reached Wilberforce from the death-bed of 
John Wesley, possibly the very last words the great 
evangehst ever wrote. After suggesting to the young 
statesman that God had raised him up to be an 
' Athanasius contra mundum' he bade him to be ' not 
weary in well-doing.' * If God be for you, who can be 
against you ? Go on in the name of God, and in the 



40 THE WEST INDIES 

power of His might. That He who hast guided you 
from your youth up may continue to strengthen you in 
this and all things, is the prayer of your affectionate 
servant, John Wesley/ The debate was prolonged 
until 7 A.M., but the ' trade ' triumphed on this occasion 
by a large majority. The fetters were not to be struck 
of£ by one or even two blows. 

As time went on, the ranks of his opponents were 
reinforced by the King, George IV, and other members 
of the royal family. Again and yet again he persevered, 
pleading earnestly in the House in 1795, in 1796, in 
1798, in 1799, but always in vain. Thus did this 
Moses of the West Indian slaves come forward un- 
dauntedly, but the vested interest of the slave-dealer 
and the slave-holder was a Pharaoh hard to persuade. 
He pleaded for nearly twenty years, yet Pharaoh 
would not ' let them go.' 

At length, however, prejudice gradually dissolved 
before the glowing enthusiasm of Wilberforce, and in 
1807 his motion was carried by 283 votes to 16. One 
of the members moved the House almost to tears as he 
contrasted the feelings of the invincible Napoleon in 
all his greatness with those of ' that honoured man, 
who would this day lay his head upon his pillow and 
remember that the slave-trade was no more.' 

Witness the Christian hero in his hour of triumph 
after the toil of years. ' God can turn the hearts of 
men,' he wrote in his diary. Some of the friends, who 
came over to his house to congratulate him, were 
discussing the nam.es of the ' sixteen miscreants,' v/hen 
Wilberforce looked up from the note he was writing and 



IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 41 

gently rebuked them : ' Never mind the miserable 
sixteen ; let us think of the glorious 283/ 



III 

Emancipation 

The trade in slaves was abolished, but slavery itself 
still went on as before ; its years, however, though not 
yet its days, were numbered. We pass over fourteen 
years. In 1821 Wilberforce handed on his mantle 
to a younger man, Thomas Fowell Buxton. 

Who owns the slave ? was the burden of his first 
great speech, delivered in the House in 1823. His 
argument was witty and unansv/erable : ' We have 
been so long accustomed to talk of '* my slave '' and 
'' your slave,'' and what he will fetch if sold, that v/e 
are apt to imagine that he is really yours or mine. 
Here is a certain valuable commodity, and here are 
two claimants for it, a white man and a black man. 
What is the commodity in dispute ? The body of the 
black man. The white man says, ''It is mine,'' and 
the black man, '' It is mine." The claim of the black 
man is just this — Nature gave it him. Will any man 
say he came by his body in an illegal manner ? Does any 
man suspect he played the knave and purloined his 
own Hmbs ? 

' Then we come to the claim of the white man. 
You received him from your father — very good. Your 
father bought him from a neighbouring planter — very 
good. That planter bought him of a trader in the 
Kingston slave-market, and that trader bought him of 



42 THE WEST INDIES 

a man-merchant in Africa. So far you are quite safe. 
But how did the man-merchant acquire him ? He stole 
him,' 

Ten more years elapsed. On August 28, 1833, a 
Bill was passed proposing the emancipation of slaves 
throughout the British dominions, with a temporary 
apprenticeship of the slaves to their existing masters, 
and a vote of twenty millions sterling as compensation 
for the loss of property. Wilberforce did not Uve to 
see this day. He died exactly a month before it. 
Unable himself to enter ' the promised land,' this 
Moses of the African Israelites was permitted to mount 
his Pisgah and view it close at hand. His prayers and 
his persistence had not proved in vain in the Lord. 

The day of Emancipation was fixed for August i, 
1834. How it was observed in the West Indies we 
shall see in a later chapter. 

BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

' The Churchin the West Indies.' A. Caldecott. (S.P.C.K. 35.6^.) 
' Race Problems.' Speech by the Archbishop of the West 
Indies. Pan-Anglican Papers. Vol. VI. 

* Black Jamaica.' W.P.Livingstone. (S. Low. 6s.) 

* Souls of the Black Folk.' W. E. B. Du Bois. 

*Up from Slavery.' Booker T. Washington. (Doubleday 
Page & Co.). 

* Mankind and the Church.' Edited by Bishop Montgomery. 

(Longmans. 75. td. net.) 
Mission WorkintheForestsof Guiana.' W.H.Brett. (S.P.C.K.) 



CHAPTER III 
JAMAICA 

Jamaica is the most picturesque island in the West 
Indies. Its original name (Xaj-maca) means : ' The 
land of wood and water.' ' The brightest jewel in 
the British diadem ' is the glowing description of 
Admiral Rodney. In size it is the largest of our West 
Indian possessions ; in position it holds a central place 
in relation to the ring of islands, and stands at the gate 
of the Panama Canal ; its Bishop is the Primate of the 
eight dioceses which make up the Province of the 
West Indies. It is forty-nine miles broad by one 
hundred and forty-nine miles long, i.e. about twice the 
area of Lancashire, and its shape on the map resembles 
one of the turtles which are so numerous in the 
surrounding ocean. Columbus, the discoverer of 
Jamaica, when asked by Ferdinand and Isabella of 
Spain what the island looked Uke, crumpled up a piece 
of paper, laid it on the table, and said it looked like 
that ; a graphic description, suggesting ridge after 
ridge of mountains, crumpled with ravines and valleys. 
Such is Jamaica, with its lovely Blue Mountains — 
which rise 8000 feet above the sea. 

4S 



44 THE WEST INDIES 

The country and people 

We land at Kingston, which is a town that possesses 
one of the finest and largest harbours in the world. A 
long and narrow spit of land cuts it off from the ocean, 
at the extreme point of which lies Port Royal, once 
the famous haunt of buccaneers. We are now in the 
business centre of the island, with its parallel streets 
and fine buildings, its electric tram.way cars, and its 
emporiums or shops which are more American than 
English. Only a few years have passed since these 
streets were blocked with debris, and since the buildings 
were smouldering heaps of ruins. Earthquakes, con- 
flagrations, and hurricanes have more than once undone 
man's proudest work in Kingston, but Phoenix-like it 
has risen from its ashes. A tomb-stone records that 
a certain Lewis Galdj^ was swallowed up by one earth- 
quake shock, and that, before life was extinct, a second 
shock cast him up again into the sea, whence he escaped 
by swimming to a boat, which carried him to the shore. 
He lived for nearly half a century after this adventure, 
and eventually died a natural death at Port Royal in 
1739. Jamaica itself has been swallowed up and 
restored to life, not once but manj^ timxcs. 

Twelve miles inland lies Spanish Town, once the 
capital and still the cathedral city ; but, since Kingston 
became the business centre, it has dwindled down to 
the proportions of a village. Passing rapidly through 
the island we notice the sugar estates, with the canes 
planted in squares, and we catch the sweet odour from 
the boilerhouse as the juice is turned into sugar. We 



JAMAICA 45 

notice, too, estates which once were sugar plantations 
but are now deserted. For sugar is no longer the chief 
product of Jamaica, bananas having taken its place 
as the staple trade ; coffee and cocoa are also grown 
in large quantities. Trade returns tell a story of rising 
prosperity and promise a future full of hope. 

So much for the country ; let us now pass on to the 
people. Where did they come from ? We are struck 
with the curious fact that the island is inhabited by 
an imported people who were attracted thither by an 
imported plant (the sugar-cane). To understand the 
situation we must go back as far as the records of the 
island will take us. After its discovery by Columbus 
in 1494 it remained in the hands of the Spaniards for 
a century and a half. Few, and for the most part evil, 
are the records of that period. 



Historical incidents 

Spanish occupation. — ^To begin with, the cruelty 
of the Spaniards soon led to the extermination of the 
Arawaks, whom they found in possession of the soil. 
So numerous were these unoffending people that, 
according to one description, they were ' like ants on 
an anthill.' As such did the invaders treat them, 
taking but a short time to stamp them out of exist- 
ence. The wholesale massacre which marked this 
period is one of the saddest incidents in the history 
of mankind. With a strange inconsistency these 
Spaniards showed as much devotion to the ceremonies 
of worship as in the destruction of their fellow- 



46 THE WEST INDIES 

creatures. ' With hands reeking with blood they 
erected temples to the Almighty, imploring mercy for 
themselves, though they denied it to the victims of 
their cruelty/ It is supposed that 1,200,000 Arawaks 
perished in Jamaica and the adjacent islands. The 
annihilation of the ' Indians ' led to the importation 
of African slave labour. Nor were the Africans in 
their turn treated with humanity. According to the 
Slave Code then in vogue, a slave who failed to perform 
his allotted task was liable to be buried up to the neck 
and left to be devoured by insects. On the other 
hand, it is to the credit of the Spaniards that they 
introduced the sugar-cane, and \^dth it the source of 
Jamaica's future greatness. 

Conquest by Great Britain- — The Spanish occu- 
pation was followed by the British conquest. In 
1655 Admiral Penn and General Venables, in the 
name of Oliver Cromwell, hoisted the English flag 
over Jamaica, where it flies to this day. It is im- 
possible to justify the treatm.ent meted out by the 
conquerors to the Spanish settlers whom the}^ 
dispossessed. They required them to hand over their 
slaves and all their effects, and to quit the island. 
Pleading in vain that they had no place to resort to, 
many of them perished in the woods. Others joined 
a band of fugitive negroes in the mountains who became 
known as ' maroons.' At the time of the British 
conquest of the island the population probably did not 
exceed 1500 whites, and about the same number of 
negroes, among whom it is worthy of note that certain 
negro priests of the Roman Church were at work. 



JAMAICA 47 

The northern portion of the island was at this time a 
desert, uncultivated and uninhabited. 

Nor can we justify our countrjonen in another 
respect. For as the Spanish pioneers had taken delight 
in building churches, the British puritans gave vent 
to their rehgious zeal bj^ destroying them. Having 
done that, their religious zeal appears to have both 
satisfied and exhausted itself. 

The island now needed to be repeopled. With this 
end in \iew Cromwell sent out a thousand Irish peasants, 
and issued orders to Scotland to ' apprehend all known 
idle, masterless rogues and vagabonds, male and female, 
and transport them to the island.' His idea no doubt 
was to ' kill tw^o birds wdth one stone ' : to clear the 
home-land of persons whom the careful Protestor con- 
sidered better out of it, and to supply the colony with 
inhabitants. Whether they wished to go, or whether 
they were welcome, was no concern of his. These ' white 
slaves,' however, did not long survive their trans- 
portation. Menial work under a tropical sun was 
more than they could endure. There were other settlers 
from England who came out of their own accord, or 
at the call of duty, but they were not models of morahty. 
It is true that the expedition of Penn and Venables 
had included seven ' ministers of rehgion,' who were 
probably naval or military chaplains ; but their oppor- 
tunity was a short one, since they all fell victims to 
tropical fever. 

Roughly speaking, the period wdth which we are now 
dealing may be summarised under four heads, and if 
we describe them as three distinct ' ages,' it is not to be 



48 THE WEST INDIES 

thought that they followed one another chronologically ; 
there was a time when they existed side by side. 

The wild, free age of the maroons. — Reference has 
already been made to the fugitive maroons, or moun- 
taineers. The word is derived from the Spanish 
Cimarron (from cima, a mountain-top). Hence our 
English word to ' maroon/ which means to set a person 
on an inhospitable shore and leave him there. The 
slaves of the Spaniards who went by this name, and such 
of their masters as joined them in their distant hiding- 
places, sallied out from time to time to harass the 
British invaders. It was found impossible either to 
destroy them or to make friends with them. After this 
annoyance had continued for eighty years, terms v/ere 
made by v/hich both sides agreed to live and let live. 
Settlements were allotted the maroons, and even now 
they retain their distinctive character while they enjoy 
the rights of British subjects. 

The golden age of the buccaneers. — Meanwhile a period 
of prosperity set in, for which the buccaneers were 
responsible. A buccaneer was a piratical adventurer 
who preyed on Spanish trade in the West Indies through- 
out the seventeenth century ; sometimes he is called a 
freebooter (from his habit of seizing booty free), and 
sometimes a filibuster (a word of Spanish origin meaning 
the same thing). He found in Jamaica a land and a 
people after his own heart. His name of buccaneer he 
derived from another of his habits — the use of a ' buccan,' 
i.e. a kind of frame for drying and smoking meat, and so 
preserving it for use on long voyages, much as the Boers 
use * biltong ' on the South African veldt. 



JAMAICA 49 

Our own old sea-dogs Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, 
Hawkins and others were not above this kind of occupa- 
tion in their campaigns against the Spanish. As Sir 
Robert Baden-Powell puts it, ' They combined a good 
deal of piracy with their patriotism/ A tough and 
rough gang were these buccaneers, and yet, in spite of 
their lawless vocation, it is on record that the crew 
of the celebrated Bartholomew Sharp mutinied against 
him because he would not hold Divine Service on 
Sundays. 

The dark age of the slave-holders. — Then, again, 
Jamaica became the mart for supplying foreigners with 
negroes. It is estimated that during the eighteenth 
century Great Britain, by means of the West Indies, 
supplied her rivals and enemies with upwards of 500,000 
African negroes. The ordinary price of a slave was £50. 
The value of the island at the close of the century was 
assessed on that basis, and as there were 250,000 slaves 
in Jamaica, it was worth as British property twelve 
millions and a half. The one hundred and fifty years 
of Spanish rule resulted, as we have seen, in the 
annihilation of the aboriginal Indians. 

It is some comfort to be able to record that such 
opportunities as the enhghtenment of the age, and the 
possibilities of the circumstances afforded, were turned 
to account. For instance, an Act passed in 1797 
directed the clergy to devote a certain portion of every 
Sunday to the rehgious instruction of slaves. In this 
work the Nonconformist bodies were more conspicu- 
ously active than the Church, and the feehng of Church- 
men is mournfully reflected injhe fact that the dihgence 

D 



50 THE WEST INDIES 

of a certain clergyman in this direction earned for him 
the reputation of being ' worse than a Baptist ' ! 

The Rev. J. B. ElHs, in a recently pubhshed work 
on 'The Diocese of Jamaica/ tells us that the reports 
which detail the patient labours of missionaries among 
the slaves contain little or no reference to persecution 
or hindrance. Some slave-holders indeed themselves 
took the lead in putting facilities in the way of their 
slaves' evangelisation. Such missionary reports as 
exist ' are simple, unadorned records of the doings of 
self-denying men, working in some obscure corner of 
the island, living a useful life of uninteresting drudgery, 
many of them dying at their post with no other conso- 
lation than the reflection that they had done their 
duty and made the way easier for others to follow them.* 
Speaking of their successors at the present day the same 
writer says : 

' When all has been admitted, it remains that 
much of actual Christian work has been done — 
and, though surroundings and conditions are year by 
year being made better, is still being done — in dull and 
distant hamlets, in hidden valleys, on mountain sides, 
in negroes' huts, in dingy mission rooms, in roughly 
furnished churches, done by men living on a mere 
pittance of a salary, cheerfully and wiUingly done, 
because they feel the doing of it to be a duty. These — 
the quiet, the self-denying, the unnamed workers — 
are the real heroes of the Church in Jamaica.' 

The modern age of commerce. — ^The year 1912 was 
one of the most prosperous which Jamaica has known 
in recent times. Bananas accounted for the larger 




^ H 



.MiWi 



-/&'-2T ' 



#^ 




-^a 



JAMAICA 51 

part of the revenue, sugar came next, then coffee, 
cocoa, rum, and timber. Fifty-eight per cent, of 
the colony's exports consist of fruit, and only nine 
per cent, of sugar. It will interest the reader to know 
how bananas are grown. After the land has been 
ploughed, the plants are set in straight rows, ten to 
fifteen feet apart. At the end of a year the first crop 
is ready for gathering. Each plant produces one 
bunch, after which it is worthless, and is cut down 
and left on the ground to rot. But new suckers are 
constantly coming up from the root, and three or four 
of these are allowed to grow. Thus when the first 
plant is cut down, another is nearly ready to bear, 
while one or two others are in different stages of growth. 
This process can be continued for about seven years, 
by which time the ground is so full of roots that it is 
necessary to plough it up and re-plant. 

There are many fine cocoa-nut groves on the island ; 
but owing to the length of time spent in waiting for 
the first crop, not so much has been done in cocoa-nut 
gro\\ing as in other industries. The trees seldom bear 
until seven years old ; but, when once they have begun, 
they continue to bear for a hundred j^ears, and are a 
considerable source of wealth. A single tree produces on 
an average a hundred nuts a year. On the same tree 
at the same time both blossoms, green fruit, and ripe 
fruit can be seen. Cocoa-nut trees like the sea air, and 
are never found far from the coast. 

It is not generally known that the Panama hat is 
not made in Panama at all. It is manufactured by 
hand from a plant which grows in Jamaica. A fine 

D 2 



52 THE WEST INDIES 

Panama hat, such as may be seen in Piccadilly or the 
Strand, may take two or three months to make, and it 
is often made to the tune of a famihar hymn which 
it is the habit of the young women to chant as their 
fingers deftly weave the straw. 



Beliefs and customs 

Ha\dng traced the origin, and briefly sketched the 
history and industries, of the present inhabitants of 
the island, we turn to a consideration of some of their 
beliefs and practices. The census of 1911 reveals 
the presence of rather less than 900,000 persons, 
of w^hom only 15,600 are white ; and whereas the 
white population is decreasing the black is on the increase. 
When therefore we speak of the beliefs of the people, 
we refer to those of the prevaiUng colour. It is true 
of Jamaica, as of all our West Indian colonies, that 
their future lies not so much with the white man or 
the fairer coloured man, as with the dark masses 
who are now rapidly winning positions to which twenty 
years ago they would never have aspired. 

Obeahism. — Although the immigration of Africans 
has ceased, the degrading superstitions of the eariier 
immigrants have to some extent survived. The wor- 
ship of imaginary evil things is one of the existing links 
with West x\frica, the land of their ancestors. Among 
the heritage of traditional beliefs, witchcraft, or obeah, 
holds the first place. The voyage across the sea and ' the 
process of the suns ' has made obeahism a weaker and far 
less dangerous force than it was, but it is still a power 



JAMAICA 53 

in the island. In its original form it was ' a strange 
compound — a sorcery which took advantage of the 
nerves of a superstitious people ; a knowledge of the 
heahng power of certain leaves and roots, and of 
the poisonous power of other vegetable substances ; 
and a claim to possess some mysterious power, some- 
times to detect, sometimes to prevent crime, sometimes 
to kill, sometimes to concoct a harmless love-philtre/ 
It was accompanied by ' a ritual at once debasing and 
terrifying/ Jamaica-born wizards, or obeahmen, never 
attained to the power of their predecessors who were 
natives of iVfrica, for the leavening brought about by 
the Christian faith prevented it from becoming a religion 
or a creed, and the light which civihsation brings in 
its train tends to limit its influence. Faith and fear 
may exist side by side, even in the same breast, but by 
degrees faith will drive out its rival. 

On the Gold Coast the various gods have their 
priests and priestesses, but there is one which has no 
regular priest. He is a particularly mahgnant spirit 
and dwells in the ceiba, or silk-cotton tree. Kis votary 
— the obeahman — can, if he dares, approach his abode 
and carry away with him a little earth, a few twigs, or 
a stone, equipped with which he can bewitch a man to 
death. In Jamaica the obeahman is employed to 
bring good fortune rather than to work harm. * He 
is not so much a terror as a fraud.' The Legislative 
Council in Jamaica has passed a stringent law against 
the practice of obeah, and the pohce — themselves 
negroes — have been active in its repression. 

Illegitimacy. — ^Would that the same progress could 



54 THE WEST INDIES 

be reported with respect to another e\dl, which is 
rampant throughout the entire West Indies — the ignoring 
of the marriage tie. It is an undisputed fact that one 
half of the adult population live together without going 
through the ceremony of marriage at all. Forty per cent, 
of the children are born of parents who are not recognised 
as such in the eyes of the law. Though the Anghcan 
Church frowns upon this condition of life and is fighting 
hard side by side with all Christian denominations, 
public opinion winks at it, and there is Uttle sign of 
progress towards a better and happier state. * The 
time has gone by,' says Mr. Ellis, ' when thinking people 
can complacently take refuge behind the shelter of a 
system (slavery) which ceased to exist three-quarters 
of a century ago. This argument has been used as an 
excuse quite long enough. No one w^ould say a word in 
extenuation or apology for any improper custom in 
England because that custom had been permitted before 
the accession of Queen Victoria.' 

Where lies the remedj^ ? It hes in our hands, and 
indirectly in our own land. ' Ideas travel from one 
country to another with incredible swiftness,' writes 
a coloured and cultured gentleman in Jamaica ; ' what 
is thought to-day in England will be thought to-morrow 
in Jamaica.' ' The progress of the \Vest Indies will 
be a progress from without, and the islands will keep 
in the closest possible touch with western thought and 
western ideas. Not only politically and commercially, 
but intellectually and morally, are they bound to Europe 
and America, and ultimately the ideals of the latter 
countries must become the ideals of the West Indies.' 



JAMAICA 55 

In other words, the future of marriage in Jamaica will 
depend upon the future of that institution in more 
civiHsed countries. 

The colour question. — One of the happiest omens 
for the future is the friendly and almost brotherly 
attitude towards each other of black and white. In 
the form known in the Southern States of North America 
and in South Africa, racial feeling may be said hardly to 
exist in Jamaica. White, black, and coloured are learn- 
ing to live together in amity, worshipping in the same 
church, and serving on the same ecclesiastical and public 
boards. As to emplojnrxent, alike in the highest positions 
and the humblest, competence is the test far more than 
complexion. Statesmen, editors, lawyers, doctors, clergy- 
men are not limited to any one race. In social life 
people of refinement and education mix on terms of 
equaUty, no matter what their colour. It is not sur- 
prising if prejudice still hngers in the breast of white 
men here and there, or misgivings exist in the hearts 
of those of the darker race. Said a negro maid to her 
mistress : ' I know we all God's children, so dey tell 
us in church, an' so I b'lieve, but — our ways are not 
your ways, nor our thoughts your thoughts. De black 
and de white like de two banks ob a ribber. You may 
trow bridge ober, but nebber, nebber make de two one.* 
Such an acknowledgment on black lips is in itself a 
happy sign, and helps towards the bridging of the gulf. 
The life-story of Booker Washington (though he was not 
a Jamaican) as told by himself in 'Up from Slavery' 
shows what possibilities lie before those who once were 
slaves. If sympathy stands on the one bank and 



56 THE WEST INDIES 

humility on the other, the outstretched hands may 
without difficulty meet across the river. 

The organisation of the Church 

We come now to consider the Anglican Church in 
Jamaica. Its earliest days coincide with the beginning 
of the reign of Charles II. The first EngHsh church 
was built at St. J ago de la Vega (Spanish Town), on the 
spot where the present cathedral now stands, which is 
one of the oldest in the British colonies, and before 
1664 six other churches had been built. At that date 
five clergjnnen were at work, and the foundations of 
Church organisation had been laid. The island then 
formed part of the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, 
in which it remained until 1824. For many years, it 
must be confessed, the function of the Church was well 
described as ' the survival of a harmless home institution 
which would cease to be tolerated if it showed signs of 
energy or activity outside its own particular groove.' 
No such signs, however, endangered its existence until 
the nineteenth century sav/ the abolition of the slave- 
trade (in 1807), since when Uvo main factors have 
contributed to produce the m.arvellous revolution which 
has meanwhile taken place. 

{a) The first was the arrival of a Bishop in 1824. 
As early as 1715 the S.P.G. had sought to establish two 
bishoprics in the West Indies, but without success. 
Dr. Christopher Lipscomb, the first Bishop of Jamaica — 
bearing in his Christian name a link with the discoverer 
of the island — found forty-five clergy at work, who were 
liberally maintained by the local government. Troub- 



JAMAICA 57 

lous times, however, awaited him. AboHtion had taken 
place, and emancipation was in the air. Outbreaks 
were common among the slaves, and ruin seemed to 
stare the planters in the face. In the midst of such 
surroundings Bishop Lipscomb set about the organisation 
of the Church, and thus helped to pave the way for the 
slaves' hour of freedom which had begun to dawn. 
The C.M.S. took their share in the task, and so of course 
did the S.P.G. 

Ten years of strenuous work, and then the day 
longed-for by the slaves, and dreaded by the masters, 
arrived. On and after August i, 1834, all slaves were 
to be regarded as free men. Their freedom, how^ever, 
did not immediate^ take effect. An apprenticeship 
of three years, terminating on August i, 1837, was to 
precede this. Bishop Lipscomb, preaching at York 
tw^o years later, describes that red-letter day in Jamaica 
as being 

' Received not by unseemly transports, not by 
degrading indulgences, not by excess or riot, but by 
a calm and settled religious feehng, consecrating the 
glorious day to devotional exercises and evincing the 
proofs of that Christian faith w^hich so powerfully 
sustained them under the most difficult of all human trials 
— sudden, temporal prosperity.' 

It was the same elsewhere, the newly freed slaves 
giving vent to their feehngs in praise and prayer. Truly 
it was a day of surprises, and a day of opportunity to 
which the home Church nobly responded. The S.P.G. 
(aided by a ' King's Letter,' by parHamentary grants, 
and by the S.P.C.K.) raised nearly £200,000 for the 



58 THE WEST INDIES 

erection of churches, and for the maintenance of clergy 
and teachers. About this time the C.M.S., pressed by 
urgent calls in other fields, was obhged to withdraw 
from the island, after fifteen years of work. All the 
more did Jamaica need the help of the S.P.G. ' Unless,' 
urged Bishop Monk in the S.P.G. annual sermon at this 
critical stage, ' unless means shall be found to instruct 
in the principles of our holy rehgion all the negro popula- 
tion of the West India Islands, the freedom which was 
intended to be a blessing may prove a curse. A deliver- 
ance from the restraint of earthly masters may become 
the means of licentiousness, unless it be attended with 
such instruction as shall substitute the holy restraints 
of rehgion.' 

(6) The other factor alluded to above was the dis- 
establishment of the Church, a blow which was marvel- 
lously over-ruled for good. God gave the leaders 
courage and wisdom in face of the new situation, and 
their flocks faith and loyalty to rally around them. 
The blessings in disguise which camxC through the move- 
ment were — a new diocesan machinery, a deeper sense 
of the corporate life of the Church, a wider scope for 
the enthusiasm of the laity, the exercise of self-reliance 
and self-denial, and, above all, a demonstration of the 
inherent strength and vitality of the Church. In the 
work of reconstruction, the laity of all classes — white, 
black, and coloured — worked whole-heartedly together. 
As members of diocesan synods and of financial boards, 
as churchwardens and lay readers, they came forward 
wiUingly to the help of the Church. 



JAMAICA 59 

Its prominent leaders 

After Bishop Lipscomb (to go back a few years) 
came Bishop Spencer, bringing with him experience 
gained as Bishop of Newfoundland. For eleven years 
he bore the brunt alone, and then his place was taken by 
his coadjutor, Bishop Courtenay, who succeeded him 
and served the diocese for twenty-six years. In his 
early manhood he had been called to the bar, a training 
which eminently fitted him to cope with the disestablish- 
ment crisis that came during his episcopate. He met 
the altered circumstances thus created in his diocese by 
summoning his clergy and representative laity in Synod, 
an institution which has met annually ever since. 

Ten years later in Enos Nuttall another leader was 
raised up, who has been spared to hold the reins to this 
very day. ' The history of the Church of England in 
Jamaica,' it has been truly said, ' since the year 1880 
is synonjnnous with the biography of the first Arch- 
bishop of the West Indies.' ' The foremost EngUshman 
in Jamaica to-day,' writes Mr. H. G. de Lisser, a native 
of the island, in ' Twentieth Century Jamaica,' ' he is 
not merely the head of his own Church, but is the 
unofficial head of all the Protestant Churches. He is 
supremely the type of EngUshman who can uphold and 
cherish the finest ideals of his country while entirely 
S5niipathising and identifying himself with the people 
and the interests of the country which he has made his 
by adoption. Thus we find that the AngHcan Church 
in Jamaica, once without influence and not deserving it, 
is to-day the Church of the poor ; a circumstance which 



6o THE WEST INDIES 

I attribute mainly to the personality of the man who has 
been its head for so many years, and to the personal 
character and influence of those who have so zealously 
assisted him.' 

At his forty-third annual synod, held at Kingston 
in February 1913, the Archbishop revealed some of the 
steps by which God called him to his present post : 

' Towards the close of the year 1862, while preparing for 
missionary work in China, I received an urgent request 
to proceed to Jamaica to fill a post which had unex- 
pectedly become vacant. I accepted what appeared to 
be a call of duty, and arrived at Kingston on St. Thomas' 
Day 1862, i.e. fifty years ago. I had cast myself upon 
the providence of God, and landed in Jamaica a stranger 
in a strange land. It did not, however, take long to 
feel at home with the people, and to become interested 
in all that concerned their welfare. I was attached to 
the Wesleyan Methodist Mission, in which I worked as 
an unordained missionary. Having reached the full 
canonical age I was ordained, by Bishop Courtenay, 
deacon on February 18, 1866, and priest seven weeks 
later ; and put in charge of St. George's Church, 
Kingston, with which I am still legally connected. . . . 
I trust that I have been divinely guided in a life which 
has furnished great opportunities of service ; and I have 
received manifold proofs of the confidence and even 
the affection of all classes. I should be very ungrateful 
if I did not to-day heartity thank Almighty God, as I 
now do, for the manifold blessings which I have received, 
and for the greatest blessing of all — the power to be of 
some use to others in this land of my adoption.' 

Space fails us to do more than mention the names of 





BISHOP LIPSCOMB 



BISHOP NUTTALL 






|f^ ^-^ %^' 



% -r 





BISHOP RAWLE 



BISHOP AUSTIN 



JAMAICA 6i 

other leaders of the Church, e.g. Bishop Tozer, who 
preceded Dr. Nuttall, and Bishop Douet and Bishop 
Joscelyne who worked with him. 

The machinery oi the Church 

A word must be said about the institutions and 
organisations which these leaders have brought into 
existence. These include the Theological College, where 
the clergy receive their training ; the Deaconess Home, 
v/hich provides women workers, trains nurses, and 
carries on a number of girls' schools ; an orphanage ; a 
Temperance Society ; a Mothers' Union ; a branch of 
the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, as indispensable as the 
Church of England Men's Societj^ has proved itself at 
home and in other colonies, and run on similar lines ; 
and the Home and Foreign ilissionary Society. There 
are at the present time eighty-tw^o clergy at work, but 
were it not for the lay help available, Divine Service 
would not be possible, as it now is, in 300 places of 
worship. 

The progress of education among the negroes has 
been assisted by grants-in-aid from Government, 
training colleges have been founded for men and women 
teachers, and government scholarships, tenable at the 
Enghsh Universities, are competed for at the secondary 
schools. Jamaica is one of the places selected by 
Mr. Rhodes' trustees to receive grants for scholarships 
under his will. 

How resourceful the people of Jamaica have proved 
themselves in times of divine visitation we have already 
noticed (p. 44), In January 1907, at the time of the 



62 THE WEST INDIES 

great earthquake, the Church took the lead in lending 
assistance and in setting an example of fortitude. In 
a few seconds many hundreds of persons were killed, 
and damage estimated at ;{^2, 000,000 was done to 
buildings. The machinery of the Church was brought 
temporarily to a standstill, just after it had all but 
recovered from the effects of a hurricane in which 137 of 
its buildings had been injured. With undaunted 
courage Jamaica Churchmen set themselves to raise the 
£30,000 needed to repair the damage done to church 
property, in which task they received liberal assistance 
from England and the United States ; in fact, the 
sympathy evoked was universal throughout the AngUcan 
communion. Among the ruins of one of the churches a 
half-crown was found, which the people at once took as 
a happy omen, and they made it the nucleus of a restora- 
tion fund. Four j^ears passed before the shattered 
buildings were ready for consecration in January 1911, 
when the occasion was worthily celebrated in the 
presence of representative Bishops from England, 
Canada, the United States, and those Bishops of the 
province who were able to be present. Thus was the 
machinery of the Jamaican Church again set in motion. 



Characteristics of negro religion 

By the blessing of God this machinery has been used 
for the production of Christians of a quite distinctive 
type. A strong realisation of a personal God, and of His 
immediate connection with the events of human life is 
the main characteristic of the negro's Christianity. He 



JAMAICA 63 

sees God in everything as a loving, living, ever-present 
Father, Who can make all things work for good. Arch- 
bishop Nuttall tells of a negro child who was in great 
sorrow because she had lost her dolly. She knelt down 
and told God about it in these words : ' O God, comfort 
me, and help me to remember where I left my dolly.' 
When she awoke next morning she said : ' I have 
dreamt of my dolly. I know where it is ' ; and she 
went and found it, and on the spot knelt down again 
and offered this thanksgiving : ' O God, I thank Thee 
for showing me where to find my dolly.' ' That illus- 
trates in a simple form/ says the Archbishop, ' what 
may be taken as a characteristic of a good negro 
Christian. It is a phase of Old Testament religion in 
modern Christian life.' Other characteristics are an 
emotional element, sometimes, if not rightly directed, 
showing itself in the superficial features of revivahsm ; 
a loyal sense of brotherhood ; and a strong deference 
to authority. 

The future 

In this survey of Jamaica we looked first at the 
island itself — its appearance, its industries, its destiny ; 
then we passed to the inhabitants — their origin, their 
history, their beUefs and practices, taking a peep into 
their hearts and into their homes ; and finally we 
studied in outHne the Church of Jamaica — the leading 
incidents, the prominent men, the agencies at work, 
and the type of Christian produced. In the story of 
Jamaica we can read in bold characters the story of 
most of our West Indian Islands. 



64 THE WEST INDIES 

And what about the future ? The piercing of the 
Panama Canal, which will unite the two great oceans 
of the world, the Pacific and the Atlantic, will 
undoubtedly bring Jamaica into new^ prominence, and 
will give that island an immense strategic importance. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

* The Diocese of Jamaica/ J. B. Ellis. (S.P.C.K. 35. net.) 

* The Earthquake/ vide Mission Field. March 1907, pp. 75, 

91 ; April 1907, p. 98 ; March 191 1, p. 67. 
'A Study in Colour.' A. Spinner. (Fisher Unwin. is. 6i.) 
' Pocket Guide to West Indies.' A. E. Aspinall. (55. net.) 
'Land of Wood and Water.' T. P. George. 'The East and 

the West.' 1910, p. 30S. 
Historical Sketch, Jamaica. (S.P.G. i^.) 

* English Church History of the West Indian Province.' 

F. P. L. Josa. (S.P.G. 2s. 6d. net.) 

* The Church of England in Jamaica.' J. B. Ellis. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 

I. — The Bahamas 

A CHAIN of five hundred islands — seven hundred miles 
in length ! How extensive a field for missionary 
enterprise this would appear ! And yet the field is not 
extensive. For although in the term Bahamas we 
include this great series of islands — lying outside and 
to the north of the main semicircle of the West Indian 
archipelago — not more than twenty of them are of 
any size or have any inhabitants. 

Taking our stand at Nassau, the capital, in the island 
of New Providence, and looking out upon a sea which 
varies from turquoise green to deepest blue, let us 
group the islands, in order that we may the more clearly 
grasp the conditions under which the missionaries 
carry on their work. Away to the north are Great 
Bahama and the Abacos ; to the west, the Biminis 
and — ^largest of all — the Andros Islands ; to the east, 
Eleuthera ; and stretching out of sight in a south- 
easterly direction, the Exuma chain and Rum Cay 
(pronounced key) ; Cat and Watling ; Long, Crooked, 
and Ragged ; Inagua, Caicos, and Turks. 

In general features, the Bahamas may be said to 

65 E 



66 THE WEST INDIES 

possess length without breadth or height. No mountains 
arrest the eye, nor are there any rivers. In Inagua there 
are places on which wild horses or cattle browse; 
in Andros, forests flourish, as yet all unexplored ; Cat 
and Watling, though four hundred years have passed, 
still contest the honour of having been the first 
to catch the eye of Columbus ; and New Pro\ddence 
attracts to itself the lion's share of commerce from 
many isles and from the States. Each island has its 
individuality, its history, its hopes, and its fears; each 
looks for help and guidance from the Church of Christ. 
The origin of these islands is a matter of conjecture. 
Some of the larger ones, it has been thought, are 
the mountainous plateau of a submerged part of the 
American continent. Most of the islands are mere 
coral rocks. These latter, built by the persistent labours 
of incredible multitudes of tiny creatures, have a charm 
of their own. And the insects which formed them 
teach us the significance of the apparently insignificant, 
and that, however trivial it may appear, no well-directed 
effort is ever made in vain. 

Historical incidents 

Exactly when the Bahamas passed into the hands 
of the EngUsh is also a question upon which there are 
differences of opinion. The date usually given is 
1629, but the year 1666, when 250 settlers emigrated 
from Bermuda, is probably more correct. The founder 
of the colony was Captain Sayle, who, driven to land 
by stress of weather, named the island New Providence, 
out of gratitude for his deliverance and by way of 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 67 

distinguishing it from another island called Providence, 
off the Mosquito Coast. It became a ' shelter for 
pirates and a disorderly set of people/ the most notable 
being a ruffian from Bristol, who, under the name of 
' Black Beard,' became a terror in the West Indies. 
Captain Vv codes Rogers, the famous rescuer of Alexander 
Selkirk from his desert island, was sent out to restore 
law and order. 

The claim of Great Britain to possess the Bahamas 
was challenged by Spain, who alternately captured, 
lost, and recaptured the islands, until at the peace of 
1783 they were finally ceded to Great Britain. About 
this time a number of American loyaUsts, on the con- 
clusion of the War of Independence, sought here a new 
home for their families and slaves. In 1806 began the 
present form of government : namely, an administration 
under a governor, with a legislature modelled upon 
the EngUsh Parhament, thus differing from the 
government of Jamaica, which is a crown colony. 



The inhabitants : at home, at work, and 
at school 

Of the original population of Araw^aks there is no 
trace. Sad indeed it is to think that these bright, 
sunny islands, set in the pure blue seas, should ever 
have been the scene of foul treachery. To the lasting 
shame of Spain, the guileless Arawaks, to the number 
of 40,000, were induced to take ship and sail to 
Hispaniola, where they were assured that they would 
meet their dead again. In the mines of Hispaniola, 

E 2 



68 THE WEST INDIES 

under conditions as hateful as they were cruel, this 
confiding race sickened and died. 

The present inhabitants consist of whites, blacks, 
and coloured people. The whites are mainly government 
officials, merchants, and store-keepers. Those born 
on the islands are called Conchs, which is the name of 
a shell-fish that is found there in great abundance. 
The blacks are the descendants of African slaves. The 
coloured element and the negroes together outnumber 
the whites by nearly five to one : of the 59,000 
inhabitants at the present day only 12,000 are white, 
and on only three islands are white people to be found. 
The Church population is about 15,000. 

Let us try to picture the life which they lead. In 
Nassau, where the majority of white folks live, the 
houses are generally built of white coral lime-stone. 
They are always large and roomy for the sake of 
coolness ; and are never more than one store}^ high, 
on account of hurricanes which demolish high buildings. 
As a rule each house stands in its own grounds. All 
have verandahs — which are called in the Bahamas 
' piazzas ' — where many daily duties are performed. 
Formerly the people built in the style of the Spanish, 
latticing up the whole of the frontage to keep out the 
sun ; but now the wide verandah is preferred, which is 
suggestive of the South African ' stoep.' Indoors 
the houses are furnished like comfortable middle-class 
homes in England. 

The native houses are small, and are generally built 
of stone and wood, and, hke those of the whites, they 
stand in their ov/n plots of land ; there are no streets 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 69 

with rows of houses such as we have in England. A 
negro's house, as a rule, has one living-room, two bed- 
rooms, and a kind of pantrj^ All cooking work for 
whites and blacks is done apart from the houses, in 
small kitchens which are built a short distance away. 
Most of the huts are thatched Vv'ith palm-leaves and 
have no ceihngs, the roof being visible inside. White 
people's houses are roofed with ' shingles/ i.e. wooden 
tiles which are imported from America. 

Having visited the native in his home, let us follow 
him to his work. Three articles in daily use among 
ourselves provide the majority of the inhabitants ^vath 
occupation and the Government \\dth most of its 
revenue, viz. sponges, rope, and salt. Sponges grow 
chiefly in the shallow waters which lie between Andros 
Island and Cuba. Fitting out at Nassau for an eight or 
ten weeks' voj^age, we join a crew of about twenty-five 
' spongers ' on a schooner. The vessel anchors thirty 
miles from land. Sm^all boats are lowered, each \\dth two 
men in them, who search about for the sponges, hook up 
as many as the boat can carry, and return to the vessel. 
When the vessel is loaded it returns to land to clean the 
sponges, vmich are by no means yet ready for the bath- 
room. These black, foul, repulsive objects, covered \\dth 
sHme and full of long, grey worms, must first themselves 
be washed. ' A vessel loaded with this li\dng mass under 
a burning sun is a thing to be avoided ! But our coloured 
boys are obUvious to its sUmy nastiness. As soon as 
land is reached the whole load is thrown into an enclosure, 
where it is left for a week for the worms to die and the 
sHme to be washed off by the tide.' Imagine how 



70 THE WEST INDIES 

difficult and disheartening is the work of a missionary 
among men engaged in such a trade as this. Taking 
the whole year through, the men and boys do not spend 
more than about half a dozen Sundays at home. They 
are absent for ten or twelve weeks, then home for eight 
or ten days, then away for another ten weeks, and so 
throughout the year. 

' The fact that the boys and men,' writes a missionary, 
' are thus removed from all home and religious in- 
fluences, causes us to have a large population of densely 
ignorant, superstitious, and grossly immoral boys 
and men. Although, when on the sponge voyages, 
they spend the Sunday at anchor in the creeks or on 
shore, in the absence of human habitation the boys 
have nothing to do but to learn bad habits of drinking 
and swearing, and listen to the immoral storie$ of the 
elder men. When they get back to the city of Nassau 
they are exposed to all sorts of temptations, and after 
the isolation on the sponge-grounds, it is easily under- 
stood how soon they go astray. Still, we do what we 
can for them. While they are at home — if only for a 
week or ten days — ^we try to get hold of them, and prepare 
them for Baptism and Confirmation. We have clubs, 
where we gather them together night after night and 
provide innocent amusements, and in the winter season 
we keep night schools to teach them to use their Bibles 
and Prayer Books. Then occasionally we go out to 
the sponging-grounds and spend a Sunday with them, 
holding Mission Services on the beach, and sometimes 
getting together as many as 400 to 500 men and boys 
at a time. In spite of much disappointment we are 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 71 

thankful to acknowledge that God has blessed our work, 
and we see a change in their general conduct. A few 
years back Sunday, when on a voyage; was spent in 
cleaning sponges, scrubbing vessels, washing clothes, 
and racing their vessels and betting on the results. 
Now, you may go out any Sunday to the creeks where 
they assemble and find what they call '' full Church '' 
being kept. That is, Matins, Litany, and actually a 
sermon ! ' 

A comparatively new industry is being worked, 
namely, the cultivation of the sisal hemp for the manu- 
facture of rope. As this grows and demands increasing 
labour, more men will be settling on the land instead 
of roving on the ocean, and consequently the task of 
the missionary wdll be easier. 

Those who live by salt collect sea-water in large 
shallow reservoirs, where the action of sun and wdnd 
evaporates the moisture. The brine which remains is 
drawn into smaller reservoirs called ' pans,' and there 
left to ' make ' ; in other words, the crystallisation of 
the salt commences. In about a month the pan is 
ready for ' raking.' The brine is drawn off, and bare- 
footed negroes, armed with huge steel-pronged rakes, 
break up the salt-cake. They rake it into heaps upon 
the beach, which becomes like a mihtary camping-ground, 
studded with miniature marquees and bell tents. The 
salt is then ready for the warehouse. 

If now we follow the children as they go to school 
we find that white children are educated apart from the 
black and the coloured. At Nassau there is an Anglican 
school for boys of the white race, and the girls are taught 



72 THE WEST INDIES 

by the Sisters of St. Peter's Community, Horbury ; 
there is also a Roman Catholic school for girls, and a 
Methodist College for both boys and girls. All the 
schools are elementary. When parents can afford it 
they send both boys and girls either to America or 
England for higher education. The coloured children 
are all educated in mixed schools by the Board of 
Education, whose schools are undenominational, clergy 
and ministers having the right of entry to teach their 
respective children. Such schools are now at work 
in many of the islands, though the whole field is not 
yet covered. In remote places where there are no 
board schools, the Church provides small elementary 
schools. Long before this provision by a Board of 
Education, the Church gave a free education to the black 
people in small schools erected throughout the islands. 
Indeed, for over forty years the Church school was 
the only means of educating the natives. The S.P.G. 
began missionary w^ork in the Bahamas as early as the 
year 1731, the Rev. W. Smith being the Society's first 
missionary there. 



Some famous Bishops 

Having thus rapidly surveyed the islands and those 
who live there, let us go back to the year 1861, when 
the Bahamas ceased to be an out-station of the Bishop 
of Jamaica and became a separate diocese in itself: 
the diocese of Nassau. Dr. Cauifield, who had done 
good service as Archdeacon, was appointed as the first 
Bishop, but within a few months of his consecration 











*m|r"^ :''''=?=^X***^ j3>--''p' — ~ ~ ** ;*l I'* , ^ ^ " 



^.||-%^ -"T^- 



RAKIXG SALT 




SALT READY FOR CARTING 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 73 

he succumbed to yellow fever. The second Bishop 
was Addington Robert Peel Venables. 

Born in 1827, he derived his Christian names from 
his sponsors, Lord Sidmouth and Sir Robert Peel, to 
whom, when First Lords of the Treasury, his father was 
private secretary. He was educated at Eton and 
Exeter College, Oxford. Though intended for a diplo- 
matic career his thoughts turned to the ministrj^ and in 
1850 he entered Wells Theological College. When he 
received the call to succeed Bishop Caulheld at Nassau 
he was thirty-six years of age. He was consecrated at 
Lambeth in 1863. He soon learnt that a missionary 
must count neither his life nor his possessions dear 
unto himself, for the ship which carried his books and 
baggage foundered, and he lost them all. Dangers and 
difficult situations were his lot from first to last. 

Troublous indeed were the times in which the new 
Bishop's lot was cast. With the cessation of the 
American Civil War (1865), a loss of trade brought 
the commerce of Nassau to the verge of ruin. In 1866 
— two hundred years after the Bahamas became an 
English settlement — a hurricane swept away eleven 
churches and five schools in a single night. In 1869 
came disendowment. Until then a generous Govem- 
riient had been responsible for the stipends of the 
Bishop and his clergy, but the time had come when 
they would have to maintain the work of the Church 
without state aid. Incumbents were permitted to 
retain their salaries during their lifetime, but a scheme 
of re-endowment had at once to be started, and at a 
time when local resources had dwindled to nothing. 



74 THE WEST INDIES 

He went to England to raise funds for his crippled 
diocese, and on his return, in 1870, he held his first 
Synod. 

The Bishop used to call the Bahamas ' the poorest 
diocese in Christendom/ and he mentions that one of 
his twelve clergy was in the habit of boiling his coat 
in logwood dye to give it a fresher look, because he 
could not afford a new one. The average district of 
a priest was about equal in area to an English county, 
and was made up of groups of islands separated bj^ 
fifty or a hundred miles of sea, which the missionary 
had to cross as opportunity offered, usually in an open 
boat. The Bishop took five weeks to visit the charge 
of one of his clergy ; the missionary at Long Island 
could not communicate with or hear from the extreme 
part of his district under five months ; and there were 
districts which were never reached at all by magistrate, 
schoolmaster, or priest. 

Around this diocese Bishop Venables used to cruise ; 
his work was rendered specialty arduous from the fact 
that he was a bad sailor. His voyages w^ere made in a 
mission boat, a little schooner of twenty tons burden, 
which was happily named The Message of Peace. 

A story is told of the brave efforts of a young woman 
on the island of Andros to present herself for Con- 
firmation. On hearing of the Bishop's arrival in the 
island she set out to walk the rough road of fourteen 
miles, fording on the way two creeks — only to learn 
that the Bishop had actually started for her village. 
Back she hastened, but in vain : the Bishop had 
returned to his head-quarters. Nothing daunted, she 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 75 

set out to do the rugged journey a second time, and 
when she arrived the Confirmation service was just 
over. The Bishop, however, held a special Confirmation 
for her. ' It gladdened my heart,' he wrote, ' to mark 
her reverent behaviour during the service, and to see 
the tears roll do\\Ti her cheeks as I addressed her.' 
That Confirmation cost her a journey of fifty-six 
miles. 

By the blessing of God the work made steady 
progress, in spite of tornadoes which levelled churches, 
and Acts of Parliament v/hich disendowed them ; and, as 
for thirteen years he traversed his scattered diocese, the 
Bishop was rewarded by finding the sacraments in- 
creasingly valued. The episcopal residence at Nassau 
takes its name from him, being called Addington House. 
The Bishop died at Harford in the United States, 
October 8, 1876, at the early age of forty-nine, and was 
succeeded by Bishop Cramer = Roberts, who, after hold- 
ing the see for seven years, was obHged by ill-health 
to resign. He did good work and was much beloved. 

The next bishop, Edward Tov^nson Churton, who, 
though endowed by nature with but a frail constitution, 
was a man of robust determination and tenacity of 
purpose. From a Dover vicarage he v/as, in 1886, 
called to Nassau, at the age of forty-six. He used to 
deUght in recalhng the fact that his consecration took 
place on the Feast of St. Matthias, the last of the 
Apostolic band, a man who is to us a name and nothing 
more. The Bishop used to describe the life which he 
and his clergy in the Bahamas lived as one in which 
there was plenty of ' knocking about,' hke a perpetual 



76 THE WEST INDIES 

game of base-ball, round and round and so home again. 
He sought to surround himself with workers who would 
cheerfully embrace poverty, hard Hving, and isolation, 
and instituted for them an annual gathering at his own 
house for retirement and prayer. Trying voyages 
and exposure to storm and tropical heat proved more 
than his weak frame could bear, and after fourteen 
years of such a life he was compelled to come home 
and rest. He died at Torquay in 1912, leaving behind 
him writings which have attained some note. 

He was succeeded, in 1902, by his Archdeacon 
and brother, Henry Norris Churton, whose episcopate 
lasted less than six months. When paying a visit at 
Ragged Island he found that he needed his Communion 
vessels, which were on board The Message of Peace 
two miles out in a rough sea. A strong nor'-easter 
was blowing, and the boat was overturned. His com- 
panions succeeded in getting him on to the keel, 
but another heaving of the ocean enveloped him in 
the waves, and they never saw him again. 

Having preceded a Bishop who was drowned within 
a few months of his consecration (Bishop Chauncy 
Maples in Nyasaland), it fell to the lot of Wilfrid Bird 
Hornby to follow another who also was drowned. 
He had already, after his resignation of the see of 
Likoma through ill-health, taken temporary duty in 
the Bahamas in order to assist the first Bishop Chur- 
ton, hence, on his arrival in 1904, he was no stranger 
to the diocese. He was the sixth Bishop which the 
diocese has had in forty-three years, and has been spared 
to rule the diocese to the present day. What are the 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 77 

special conditions, difficulties, encouragements, and 
needs with which he is confronted ? 

Present-day conditions 

The work is simplified by the fact that there is no 
language difficulty, all the black people speaking English. 
On the other hand, the distance by sea from one end 
of the diocese to the other is nearly 650 miles, extending 
from the Biminis on the west to Turks Islands on 
the east. The parishes, consequently, are large and 
unworkable, as they were in the days of Bishop 
Venables. 

Let us take a typical example of a priest on an 
island parish. We will select the traditional San 
Salvador of Columbus, now called Cat Island. Its 
shape, hke that of Italy, resembles a boot ; its length 
is sixty miles ; its average breadth four miles. A 
layman — Mr. L. D. Powles, at one time a Circuit 
Justice in the Bahamas — shall be our authority, and 
his words are of special interest, being those of a 
Roman Cathohc : 

' We spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with 
the Rev. F. B. Matthews. Let me attempt to describe 
the sort of place an English clergyman, his wife, and 
two children have to live in to carry on their work. A 
house larger than, but about on a level with, an Enghsh 
labourer's cottage, containing two rooms and an apology 
for a study, something hke a store-closet. No ceiUng ; 
merely a partition between sitting-room and bedroom ; 
only a solitary window glazed ; and scarcely one of 
the little comforts that would be found in the poorest 
home in England. . , . 



78 THE WEST INDIES 

' It is no sinecure,' the writer goes on, 'to be rector 
of a parish sixty miles long by four wide, with seven 
churches to serve as best you may/ 

Speaking of the clergy generally, he says : ' They 
are gaining ground every day among the coloured 
people. This is not to be wondered at, for, whether 
one agrees with them or not, it is undeniable that their 
faith is to be seen in their lives. They live among the 
people and with them, and there is no thought of a 
colour line in their hearts, and the people have learnt 
to love and trust them.' 

' There is no thought of a colour line in their hearts ' : 
but in their longing to be all things to all men they 
are, alas, obHged to bear it in mind. For the colour 
question is a very difficult and delicate one in the 
Bahamas — and, as we shall see presently, in portions 
of Central America — though it is all but solved in 
Jamaica. In the diocese of Nassau it crops up every- 
where. Is there a parish reception ? then there must be 
one for the white and one for the black. The same 
conditions obtain for Confirmation classes. The fact 
that at the altar the two races are separated, the white 
people going up first, the black afterwards, is probably 
due to deference on the part of the black communicants 
and not to any sensitiveness on the part of the whites. 
Nevertheless, it must be owned that a good deal of 
prejudice exists on the one side, and of jealousy on the 
other. The black people long to be white, and every 
one desires to be lighter than he is. Christian workers 
do well to ignore this in principle, while they tactfully 
respect its existence. 

Again, we take a typical day spent by the Sisters 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 79 

of the St. Peter's Community. At present their 
number is four, but two other ladies Uve with them 
to teach in the school. A celebration of the Holy 
Communion opens the day. After breakfast two or 
three little black children appear with messages for 
the Sister who attends upon the sick, and whose skill 
outrivals even the reputation of the obeahman. While 
the housekeeping Sister sallies forth to the market 
the other two Sisters spend the morning at the school, 
where forty or fifty white children are educated on 
High School lines. The afternoons are devoted to 
visiting the hospital, the lepers, and the various parishes, 
or to the many visitors who on one errand or another 
resort to ' The Farm,' as the Sisters' residence is called. 
Not easy is the perpetual effort to keep from getting 
slack or impatient — for these children of Nature are 
very prone to slip back into bad ways, and the strain 
of teaching during the heat of the day is intense. 

Difficulties 

Two difficulties which exist in all parts of the Mission 
field are found here also : those, namely, connected 
with the supply of men and with the raising of money. 
At the annual meeting of the Nassau Association in 
1913, it was announced that six parishes were vacant, 
and when we remember that the average size of a 
parish is about equal to that of an English county 
we can appreciate the extra work which this imphes 
for men who are already hard worked. Were it not 
that the diocese is so often undermanned, the money 
collected would fall short. With a view to meeting 



8o THE WEST INDIES 

money difficulties, every communicant pledges himself 
to pay Church dues at the rate of 95. a year. The 
S.P.G. gives a grant of £500, and the Nassau Diocesan 
Association endeavours to raise another £600. 

Added to the above difficulties there is the loneU- 
ness of the clergy in the out-stations ; they count 
themselves fortunate if they see a brother priest more 
than once a year, at Synod time. 

Encouragements 

There is, however, a bright side to the picture. The 
work thus beset \\ith difficulties has not been in vain. 
One rejoices to notice a loosening of the hold which 
superstition has upon the natives. ' When I began 
work among them twenty-five years ago,' writes the 
Rev. F. B. Matthews, ' nearly every sailor went to sea 
wearing a '' witched '' waistband made of shark-bones, 
which was supposed to secure the wearer from ship- 
wreck. When I left, in 1908, all, as far as I knew, 
wore some Christian emblem.' They are taught, of 
course, that Christian sjnnbols are to be used as a 
reminder and in no sense as a charm. 

Doubtless the greatest encouragement of all is to 
be found in the loyal and self-sacrificing body of 
catechists and lay-workers. There is a roll of 125 of 
these, who are nearly all of African descent, and who 
give their services gratuitously. If a parish is vacant, 
or a clergyman is ill, his place as often as not will be 
taken by a lay-worker, even if it involves (as it often 
does) a rough and hazardous journey of many miles. 
One such devoted catechist of the Berry Islands, Urban 




THE OLD CHURCH AT LONG BAY, AXDROS ISLAND 




BOY SCOUTS^ LIMOX, HONDURAS 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 8i 

Johnson by name, was drowned while endeavouring 
to reach his home in order to hold services on New 
Year's Day (1913). Another instance of what a God- 
fearing layman can do is afforded by the life of Arthur 
Neild, who lived for ten years on Little Abaco. He 
was Resident Director of a commercial company, and 
was practically governor of the island. A staunch 
Churchman, he supplemented the occasional visits of 
the Mission priest by holding services regularly on 
Sundays in a carpenter's shop, baptising in cases of 
emergency, and preparing for Confirmation men and 
women, whom he sent to be confirmed in Nassau, a 
hundred miles away. After a long day's work he 
would visit the sick, and even sit up all night with them. 
A tap at his window at any hour of the night would 
ummon the ' boss ' to help whenever his sympathy or 
advice were required. He raised funds for the erection 
of a church, but died in 1906, before it was completed, 
at the age of forty-three. 

A hopeful sign for the future is that Nassau has its 
troop of Boy Scouts, who had their first demonstration 
on Empire Day 1913, beginning with a service at the 
cathedral. 

A parable 

Before we take leave of the Bahamas let us learn the 
parable of the conch ! The shore is strewn with conch 
shells. Stoop down and pick up one of them, and 
perhaps you will find within a pink pearl. Yes, perhaps, 
for there is no external sign that you have hit upon a 
treasure. A man may spend his whole hfe opening 



82 THE WEST INDIES 

conch shells and never find one, and he may find enough 
to make his fortune in twenty-four hours. They are not 
found in or about the shell, but buried in the flesh of 
the creature. 

A conch suggests to us something else besides a shell. 
For what saith the Scripture ? ' The kingdom of heaven 
is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls : 
who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went 
and sold all that he had and bought it/ The pearl in 
a conch is not found in or about the shell. Neither will 
superficial work avail to disclose the divine in the human. 
On the contrary, it demands the devotion of a lifetime. 
In examples of devoted lives the diocese of Nassau is 
rich, and has been rich in the past. The eight senior 
clergy have given between them 208 years of service, vary- 
ing from thirty-eight to twenty years each. These and 
many others have gone forth, often with their lives in 
their hands, to ' glorify the Lord in the isles of the sea.' 

11. — British Fionduras and Central America 

As we cross over from the island diocese of Nassau 
to the mainland diocese of Central America, we notice 
that the two dioceses have this at least in common, that 
the supervision of each involves constant travelling by 
sea. Big liners, small steamships, schooners, sloops, 
gasoline engines, large and small canoes (' every kind of 
ship except an airship '), take the place of the graceful 
Message of Peace as the Bishop of Honduras visits 
his stations on a coast line of 1200 miles ; in trains, 
trolleys, and railway carriages, upon horseback and mule- 
back, and sometimes on foot, he makes his visitations 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 83 

up-country. He has perils of waters enough, it may 
easily be imagined ; and, besides these, perils by land, 
in the shape of earthquakes, floods, and landslides. 

The lie of the land 

' Depths ' is the meaning of the Spanish word 
' Honduras.' Its choice was due to the fact that the 
country bearing this name is situated in the Bay of 
Honduras, or the Deep Bay. The word applies equally 
well to the interior, where there are forests of log- 
wood and mahogany, unsurveyed and unexplored, and 
which are well-nigh impenetrable. The existence of 
these forests first attracted Englishmen thither in the 
old buccaneering days, but now fruit-growing rivals 
timber-cutting, an industry which has brought to Central 
America large numbers of negroes from Jamaica. 

British Honduras, the diocese of which was separated 
from Jamaica in 1883, is about the size of Wales, and 
has, therefore, double the area of the Bahamas. Geo- 
graphically it presents a striking resemblance to the 
diocese of British Guiana. Both are low-lying countries^ 
with higher ground beyond ; and both have large rivers 
running parallel to each other. Belize, the largest river 
in British Honduras, has given an alternative name to 
the whole colony, just as Demerara has to British 
Guiana. When we add to British Honduras the six 
repubhcs of Spanish Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, 
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and a portion of Panama, the 
vast extent of the diocese will be perceived. Once the 
see was even bigger than it is, for when the Americans, 
in 1906, undertook the cutting of the Panama Canal the 

F 2 



84 THE WEST INDIES 

adjoining territory on either side — called the canal zone — 
was ceded to the American Church. The proximity to 
the Panama Canal invests the diocese with a special 
importance. 

A scheme is under consideration whereby the foreign 
jurisdiction of the diocese shall be transferred to the 
Church of America. The Bishop of Honduras would 
continue his oversight of the northern part of Central 
America, retaining his own diocese as at present, but 
becoming the agent of the American Church at such 
times as he might go outside the British portion of the 
diocese. 

The population 

In British Honduras itself there are about 40,000 
inhabitants, of whom not more than tvv^o per cent, are 
white, the remainder being descendants of the slaves 
of former days. In the region as a whole, the bulk of 
the population consists of Spanish Roman Catholics. 
The Anglican population is composed mainly of negro 
labourers who have been attracted from Jamaica by 
the high wages obtainable on the banana plantations 
and on the Panama Canal works. They come to a place 
where the standard of morality is low ; where drink, 
gambling, and lust abound ; and where the prevailing 
Roman Catholic Church as an aggressive force against 
evil is ' at its weakest and worst.' These imported 
labourers are our fellow subjects, and most of them are 
our feUow churchmen. With no church to go to, and 
no clergy to minister the means of grace, to marry, visit, 
and befriend them — their lot would indeed be pitiable. 
The clergy engaged in this work number about fifteen, 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 85 

assisted by a few lay-readers and catechists. They 
have a lonely time, and need to be men of strong 
character and faith. Their present head is Bishop 
Farrar, who was formerly in Antigua. He went, 
in 1912, to British Honduras to act temporarily as the 
commissary of the iVrchbishop of the West Indies, 
and was definitely appointed to the bishopric the 
next year. 

The following is an account of a visit paid by an 
Archdeacon to a village near Port Limon : 

' We walked along the shore under cocoa-nut trees 
to a small house where the catechist lives. On the 
following morning the people flocked to the httle church 
from miles around. Some came on horse-back and some 
on foot, but all with bright eager faces. It was a strange 
sight — this wooden church, set in the midst of a palm- 
forest, all the windows thrown wdde open to allow every 
breath of air to enter. As I marked the earnest, interested 
attention of these black people my spirit was raised in 
thankfulness to the Maker of all men Who had put 
into the heart of the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel to aid the Mission in these parts, so that even to 
this isolated spot the Gospel has been brought. I learnt 
that during the past few years great progress towards 
civihsation has been made. Before the Mission the 
people hved in an unmarried state ; now most of them 
are married. At one time the people were quarrelsome, 
and used to inflict terrible wounds with the machette — 
a long knife used for agriculture. Now it is seldom a 
case of this kind is known. They are industrious and 
thrifty, and take a great interest in their church. They 
have just bought themselves a small cottage organ. 
One man of the congregation thought of a plan for 
raising the funds. He would give away 700 cocoa-nuts 



86 THE WEST INDIES 

on the condition that every person who received loo 
promised to obtain lOO more ; out of these 200 they 
were to extract the oil and sell it. In this way oil 
was got from 1400 cocoa-nuts, which was sold. With 
this money they bought the organ. We held a dedica- 
tion service for it. It was pathetic to see the joy and 
pride with which these poor folk regarded their little 
organ. Doubtless they thought there was not so fine 
an instrument of music in the whole world.' 



The nature of the problems 

Two questions which confront the missionary may, 
perhaps, be described as the Black Problem and the 
White Peril. In the British West Indies, generally, the 
former hardly exists at all, though in the Bahamas it 
reveals itself in a modified form. In America, however, 
and in the diocese which we are now considering — owing 
chiefly to its more direct contact with the States — the 
problem is acute. 

We hear a good deal in these days, especially in 
South Africa, of the Black Peril. Is there not, however, 
such a thing as the White Peril too ? ' Our main diffi- 
culty,' writes Bishop Farrar, ' lies in the indifference of 
our European element. They seem to go to pieces in 
this atmosphere. They develop livers but not morals, 
and they see the faults of the coloured people without 
rousing themselves to help to correct them.' 

The solution of the problems briefly touched upon 
above will be found by those w^ho seek it in a Christian 
spirit. Probably the common Eucharist will bring 
white and black together more quickly and effectively 



THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 87 

than anything else. To bring the two races together in 
sympathy, is a more important task than to bring the 
two oceans together. 



A forecast 

The Panama Canal, w^hich is to be opened, all being 
well, on January i, 1915, will mark an epoch in the world's 
history. The little strip of water, forty-nine miles long 
— which represents the labour of many years, and ' the 
greatest engineering enterprise in the world ' — will 
alter the face not of this diocese only, but of the entire 
West Indies. The West Indian Church maj^ one day 
find itself in the forefront of the world. 



To = day 

There is an innate tendency in human nature to 
postpone a duty to ' a more convenient season '■ — a 
tendency to which Central Americans are particularly 
prone. Hence the coat-of-arms of the diocese showing 
four banana-leaves, one in each comer, an open Bible 
in the centre, and underneath, as a motto, ' Hoy, no 
Man ana,' the Enghsh translation of which is, ' To-day, 
not to-morrow\' 

In the Bahamas and in Central America there are 
difficulties which would daunt any heart which is not 
stayed upon God, and dangers that would appal any 
but the brave. Yet the Christian soldier seeks no soft 
and easy campaign. Dangers and difficulties serve to 
call out his best and summon him to the conffict. If, 



88 THE WEST INDIES 

then, as we have just seen, the hne of battle is Hkely to 
be in the ' forefront of the world/ how urgent and unique 
is the opportunity; if the Church in the West Indies 
is to be prepared when its hour arrives, then the time to 
come to their aid is ' not To-morrow, but To-day/ 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

* Life of Bishop Venables.' F. H. King. 

* Women's Work at Nassau.' Mission Field. Sept. 191 1, 
p. 274. 

* Salt- raking.* Mission Field. Feb. 1906, p. 52. 

' In British Honduras.' Mission Field. March 1908, p. 89. 
'200 Years of S.P.G.' C. F. Pascoe. (S.P.G. 7s. 6^.) 



CHAPTER V 

BARBADOS AND THE WINDWARD ISLANDS 

I. — Barbados 

Picture a low green island, the sea a marvellous blue, 
and slender palms and tropical verdure crowding 
down to the w^ater's edge. Peeping through the trees 
is Bridgetown, the capital, and the name of the island 
itself is Barbados. That light green beyond represents 
the island's wealth — ^its sugar-cane crop. Bananas, 
yams, pineapples, and sweet potatoes are there, too, 
in abundance. The island is very flat, but Ues in 
terraces ; its highest point is nearly 1500 feet above 
the sea, and, from its mid and mountainous aspect, is 
called the Scotland district. 

The size and shape of Barbados 

Although in size it is little larger than the Isle of 
Wight, being twenty-one miles long by fourteen miles 
broad, it is the most thickly populated spot on the 
face of the globe. For whereas the Isle of Wight has 
about 83,000 inhabitants, Barbados contains nearly 
200,000. They are mostly blacks, and are descen- 
dants of West African slaves ; and it is worthy of 

89 



90 THE WEST INDIES 

note that when we British first landed there the island 
was apparently uninhabited.^ 

Its shape may be roughly described as a triangle, 
with the apex pointing to the north-west. Lying further 
to the east than the rest of the West Indies it is the 
nearest to the mother country, from which it is separated 
by 4000 miles at Atlantic Ocean. From Jamaica it 
is distant 1000 miles, and 400 miles from British Guiana. 



A flying: visit 

Passing hastily through Bridgetown we look into 
the cathedral, and are informed that it was built with 
money raised by a lottery. The font dates from 1680, 
and has an inscription in Greek letters, which means 
* Wash the sin, not merely the face.' From Bridgetown 
the one line of railway, twenty-four miles in length, 
runs across to the eastern coast and then turns north- 
wards to the parish of St. Andrew. An hour's journey 
by rail brings us to the Windward coast where, situated 
on the side of a hill overlooking the sea, stands Cod- 
rington College, one of the most interesting buildings in 
the whole of the West Indies. 

We must return to this spot. In the meantime 
there are three questions to which we require an answer. 
How came this island into British hands ? How has 

^ It is interesting 'to note how Barbados compares with the 
great countries of the world as regards population to the square 
mile. It comes easily first with 1181 persons to the square mile, 
Belgium being next with 660, the United Kingdom third with 
376, then Germany with 311, China with 265, and India 
with 121. 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 91 

the Church of England discharged its trust ? What 
is our special opportunity at the present time ? 

{a) — Barbados and Great Britain 

The actual date of the discovery of Barbados is 
uncertain. It is said to have been \4sited by the 
Portuguese in 1536, and was called by them ' Los Bar- 
budos/ after the bearded fig-trees which they found 
there. A private expedition, fitted out by Sir Olave 
Leigh of Kent, in a ship called the Olive Blossome, landed, 
on its way to Guiana, in 1605. Finding the island 
uninhabited he erected a cross, and inscribed on a tree 
the words ' Jam.es K. of E. and of this island ' ; he then 
pursued his voyage.^ Twent}^ 3'ears passed before a 
settlement of Enghshmen was m^ade. 

As in its geography, so in its history, Barbados 
stands apart from the other islands in the Caribbean 
ring. It is not, as with the rest, a story of rival nations, 
but of rival Enghshmen, alternately dispossessing one 
another. After a confhct of royal and private 
claims, proprietar\' rule gave way to immediate de- 
pendence upon the cro^\^l, and eventually to repre- 
sentative institutions. It is enough for our purpose 
to note that the first settlement was founded by a 
London merchant named Courteen, and that the island 
was granted by patent to the Earl of Carlisle in 1627, 
on the ground of his ' laudable and pious design of 
propagating the Christian rehgion ' as well as ' of en- 
larging His Majesty's dominions.' Strict conformity 

^ The Olive Blossome is perpetuated on some of the postage 
stamps of Barbados. 



92 THE WEST INDIES 

to the Church of England was enjoined by law and 
enforced by fines. Thus read the ordinance : ' That 
Almighty God be served and glorified, and that He 
give a blessing to our labours, it is hereby enacted that 
all masters and overseers of families have prayers 
openly every morning and evening with his family, 
upon penalty of 40 lbs. of sugar, the one half to the 
informer, the other to the public treasury of the island.' 
If men could be made rehgious by Act of Parliament, 
Barbados would have been an earthly paradise. But 
there is another side to the picture. The direction 
of all Church affairs rested in the hands of the planters, 
and if there was one thing more than another which 
they would not tolerate, it was what was termed 
' enthusiasm ' in religion. They were the only ' bishops,' 
in the literal sense of the word which means ' over- 
seers ' ; and woe betide the clergjnnan who sought to 
bring the Gospel within the reach of the negro slaves. 
So tyrannous was their rule that towards the close of 
the eighteenth century most of the clergy had left the 
island, feeling that their position was impossible. At 
one time, wherever the sacraments w^ere performed, 
they were performed by the overseers, ' in a kind of 
profane merriment and derision of the ordinances.' 

It is somxCthing to be thankful for that the British 
traditions of the island are unbroken. Never has an 
invader set foot on it. Its settlers have made it their 
home, and not merely their trading ground, and they 
have turned every available portion of it to good 
account. 

We have already stated that when Bishops were 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 93 

appointed for the West Indies, Jamaica and Barbados 
were the first two dioceses to be formed. The whole 
of the West Indies were divided between them, and 
besides the island of Barbados, the diocese of that name 
embraced what are now the dioceses of British Guiana, 
the Windward Islands, Antigua, and Trinidad. 

A fruitful garden 

If in its history and geography Barbados stands 
apart from the other Caribbean Islands, in its trade 
relations it is akin to them. It is like one great garden, 
no less pleasant than fruitful. It is wholly given to 
sugar. A few plantations of trees, and an occasional 
plot of maize or j^ams, alone vary the monotonous 
fields of cane, with the chimneys and windmills of the 
sugar factories rising among them. Sugar is produced 
not only from cane, but from beet also. In the case 
of the cane, the first operation consists in pressing out 
the juice by means of large rollers. The juice is then 
boiled until the sugar crystalhses. The liquid which 
is drained off is used as ' molasses ' for rum and 
for fuel. In obtaining the juice from beetroot, the 
root is mashed to a pulp and the juice pressed out ; 
or, according to another method, the saccharine matter 
is extracted by placing the roots in cyHnders through 
which water is forced. 

Some idea of life on a plantation may be gained 
from the following experience of a West Indian 
missionary : 

' I am taking my leave on a sugar estate in the house 
of one of the overseers. He is an EngHshman, and 



94 THE WEST INDIES 

married. Life on a sugar estate is the hardest, most 
isolated, and fullest of temptations that one can conceive. 
The overseer's lot is as isolated as anyone's can be. 
His hours of work are so long, and in all weathers, that 
he must be tired at the end of the day, especially if 
he is a fever subject. What seems more natural than 
a whisky and soda, and then another ? And I don't 
see what chance he has of going to church more than 
occasionally ; and seldom to the Holy Communion. 
When a man has been up at 4 a.m. for six daj'^s, he 
doesn't want to get up for church at 8 o'clock. From 
what I have seen of a planter's hfe, I wouldn't send 
a dog to live it.' 

With regard to the superstition of the negro labourer, 
the same writer continues : 

' My friend and I were in the field when I asked him 
why the driver wore one of those round penny mirrors 
tied to his coat button-hole. He thought that perhaps 
he used it to see what was going on behind him. So 
we asked the old man. He said it was for spirits. 
My friend said, " But you are a Christian, aren't you ? " 
'' Oh yes," said the driver ; '' but you still got to look 
out for spirits." The planter then said, '' I didn't 
know that ; I always thought our Father in Heaven 
looked after them, and kept His children from harm. 
Now, how does this mirror keep them off ? " '' Well, 
you see, sir, when the spirit comes to do you an3rthing, 
he is bound to look into the glass. Then he sees his 
own two eyes, and as he continues looking, he sees his 
two eyes melt into one, and he gets afraid and goes 
away." ' 

Among other industries fishing, especially the taking 
of flying fish, is important ; and there is also a small 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 95 

whale fishery. Cotton and bananas are grown, and 
petroleum exists in small quantities. Here, as else- 
where in the West Indies, the example of the EngUsh- 
man is either a blessing, or it works incalculable harm. 
By virtue of his authoritative position his influence is 
never neghgible. 

(6) — The organisation of the church 

It was a red-letter day when William Hart Coleridge, 
who v/as consecrated in 1824, arrived as the first Bishop. 
A tumultuous welcome was accorded him, the ships- 
of-war fired salutes, and ' the people broke out into 
a hundred wild exclamations of joy, uttered with such 
vehemence that it made me tremble,' records a spectator. 
' On the quay, on the wall, on boats, on posts, on the 
housetops, through doors and through windows, wherever 
a human foot could stand, was one mass of black faces. 
As the barge passed slowly along, the emotions of the 
multitude were absolutely tremendous.' 

Bishop Coleridge. — ^The seventeen years' episco- 
pate so auspiciously begun laid the foundations upon 
which the work has ever since been built. The Bishop 
divided his scattered islands into rural deaneries, 
and subsequently into archdeaconries. Through his 
energy and guidance Codrington College came into 
being in the form in which its founder intended, as we 
shall see presently. The greatest monument, however, 
to Bishop Coleridge is the peaceful and orderly manner 
in which Emancipation Day (August i, 1838) was 
celebrated. Though it might have been expected, and 
it would almost have been pardonable, that such a day 



96 THE WEST INDIES 

should be given up to riot, the very opposite, in fact, 
was the case. How the day was observed is told by 
the Bishop : 

' I was present ; but there was no gathering that 
affected the public peace. There was a gathering, but 
it was a gathering of old and young together, in the 
house of the common Father of all. It was my peculiar 
happiness on that memorable day to address a congrega- 
tion of nearly 4000 persons, of whom more than 3000 
were negroes just emancipated. And such was the 
order, deep attention, and perfect silence, that you 
might have heard a pin drop. Among this mass were 
thousands of my African brethren joining with their 
European brother in offering up their prayers and 
thanksgiving to the Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier 
of all' 

It was chiefly owing to the S.P.G., the Bishop adds, 
that the day was passed in the w^ay he has described. 
Although, no doubt, indirectly this was true, j-et the 
Bishop's presence had much to do with it. We have 
it on the authority of an agricultural attorney who 
was present, that ' the impressive address of the Bishop 
on the day of liberation tended greatly to tranquilise 
the minds of the newly liberated people.' 

How an opportunity was seized 

The Rev. F. R. Braithwaite, in a letter to Bishop 
Coleridge, dated at St. Vincent, September i, 1838, 
gives another account of how that memorable day 
was spent : 

' The 1st of August, though ushered in by thunder, 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 97 

lightning, and heavy rain, proved from 9 o'clock a 
fine day. I went from place to place and held services 
at 9.30, 12.30, 2.30, and 4.30, on each occasion with 
crowded congregations. The journey was effected 
in a five-oared canoe, pulled by five volunteers, with 
strong arms and hght hearts. On each occasion I 
preached from Deut. vi. 12 : '' Beware, lest thou 
forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the 
land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." First, 
as to the duration of the bondage ; secondly, as to its 
nature ; thirdly, as to the method of deliverance — 
likening the four years of probationary apprenticeship 
to the forty years of probationary wandering. 

' I concluded by showing how ungratefully the 
Jews had met the mercies of God, and how severely 
that remarkable race had been chastised — exhorting 
my people to make a better use of their blessing. . . . 
It was a delightful day to me, because I saw before 
me a double triumph : (i) in effecting the abolition of 
slavery ; (2) in the sober gladness with which the 
blessing was received.' 

When he arrived in the West Indies, Bishop Coleridge 
found the Church in a disjointed and chaotic condition. 
He left it in 1841 united in one diocese, and with plans 
drawn up for its division into three dioceses — a division 
which was at once effected ; for on August 14, 1842, he 
had the joy of assisting at the consecration of Thomas 
Parry as Bishop of Barbados, Daniel Gatewood Davis 
as Bishop of Antigua, and Wilham Piercey Austin as 
Bishop of Guiana. 

Bishops T. and H. H. Parry. — Bishop Parry 
guided the Church through a period of steady growth 
for twenty-eight years. An event of great importance 



98 THE WEST INDIES 

marked his episcopate, viz. the organising of a Society 
for carrjdng the Gospel to the portions of West Africa 
from which so many slaves had been drawn. The prime 
mover was Richard Rawle — a name that will always 
be honoured in the West Indies — and the Society has 
since been carried on as ' The West Indian African 
(Rio Pongas) Mission/ in the diocese of Sierra Leone. 
It was started in the third jubilee of the S.P.G. (1851), 
and the Church in Barbados took this step ' as a suitable 
commemoration of the Society's benefits.' The aim 
was to train Africans, who had become Christians in the 
West Indies, to go back as missionaries to their own 
people. 

During the last six years of his episcopate Bishop 
Parry lived in England, and his son. Bishop H. H. 
Parry, took his place and eventually succeeded him ; 
but his tenure of the see was a short one, as, in 1873, he 
was appointed to the bishopric of Perth, Australia. 

Bishop Mitchinson. — His successor was a 
brilHant scholar. Dr. John Mitchinson, of Oxford, who 
held the see from 1873 to 1881. Just before his 
appointment, the diocese of Trinidad was carved out of 
Barbados (1871), and soon afterwards the Windward 
Islands were made into a separate diocese (1879). 
The general disestablishing of the Church in the other 
islands made this latter step inevitable. Barbados 
continued to be State controlled and State paid, and 
the two methods of government and finance proved 
incompatible. The Church in Barbados holds to this 
day an unique position in the West Indies, since it is 
stiU an ' established ' Church, and the stipends of the 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 99 

clergy, including those of the Bishop and Archdeacon, 
are paid from the pubUc treasury. 

Bishop Mitchinson has now for many years been 
the Master of Pembroke College, Oxford. His episco- 
pate is chiefly memorable for the great progress made 
throughout the island in educational matters, including 
the affihation of Codrington College to the University 
of Durham. 

Bishop Bree. — His place in Barbados was taken 
by Herbert Bree, who went out in 1882, and held the 
see up to the time of his death in 1889. His appoint- 
ment of a coloured priest to one of the rectories drew 
a strong protest from the islanders. The Bishop 
remained firm, however, and the wisdom of the step 
was afterwards admitted. Another event of interest 
was the consecration of Archdeacon Holme, of St. 
Kitts, as the first Bishop of Honduras in St. MichaeFs 
C athedral,Barbados. 

Bishop Swaby. — ^The vacancy created by Bishop 
Bree's death was filled by the translation of Dr. Swaby 
from British Guiana, the occupant of the see at the 
present time (1913). 

(c) — Our Opportunity 

In order to answer our third question : ' What is 
our special opportunity at the present time ? ' we must 
return to Codrington College, the picturesque and his- 
toric building on the east coast. To trace its story from 
the beginning takes us back to the earhest days of the 
S.P.G. itself. We have seen above the state of paralysis 
to which the Church in Barbados was reduced prior to 



100 THE WEST INDIES 

the arrival of the first Bishop. There was one bright 
exception, however, in the person of a layman, whose 
memory the Church will always hold in reverence and 
gratitude. 

General Codrington. — Christopher Codrington, 
the son of a Captain-General of the Leeward Islands, 
was born in Barbados in 1668. An undergraduate 
of Christ Church, Oxford, he became a Fellow of 
All Souls in 1690. He was an untiring student of the 
manliest type, and on one occasion he filled the role 
of pubUc orator at the University. It was, however, 
neither as a scholar nor as a speaker that he achieved 
his greatest fame, but as a soldier. In 1694 he quitted 
the peaceful cloisters of his College for the battle-field, 
and so distinguished himself in Flanders that he was 
appointed to succeed to his father's command in the 
West Indies when only thirty years old, with the rank 
of General. 

A few years later we find him in retirement on his 
estates in Barbados, resuming the life of a student. 
There he died at the early age of forty-two, on Good 
Friday 1710, leaving behind hjm ordered plans and 
ideas, together with the means for carrying them out. 

For in 1703 he had made a will — two years after 
the founding of the S.P.G. — in which he left his two 
estates in Barbados to that Society. The main 
provisions were : (i) The plantations were to be 
continued as before, and 300 negroes at least always 
to be kept thereon ; and (2) a number of professors 
and scholars were to be maintained there, all of them 
to be under monastic vows, with the express purpose of 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS loi 

studying medicine and divinity, and thus to 'be of 
service both to the bodies and souls of men.' 



The Codrington bequest 

The colony was not sufficiently advanced to avail 
itself of an educational institution such as this ! 
Codrington himself was, in fact, a century in front of 
his time, though, as regards the provisions relating to 
the slaves, he did but reflect the spirit of the age. 

Before going further, let us put ourselves in the 
place of the S.P.G. Standing Committee, and ask, ' Can 
this trust be accepted ? Can the Society permit itself 
to be the holder of slaves ? ' This question exercised 
the minds of religious people both at the time and for 
many years afterwards, and became pressing during 
the agitation which was raised by Wilberforce and his 
friends against the slave-trade. Three courses were 
open to the Society: (i) They might relinquish the 
trust, on the ground that it was not right to do 
evil that good might result. (2) They might set free 
the slaves. (3) They could make provision for their 
gradual emancipation, and by the experiment of free 
labour demonstrate to the colonies that the abolition 
of slavery could be accomplished without danger to 
Hfe or property. The first suggestion they put aside, 
arguing that they would be committing a greater 
wrong by rehnquishing the trust than by accepting it. 
They believed that the second step would be followed 
by more suffering and crime than had been witnessed 
under the most galling bondage. Notwithstanding the 



102 THE WEST INDIES 

odium which it brought upon them, the Society adopted 
the last of these courses : and their consideration for 
the spiritual and moral welfare of the slaves under 
their charge proved that African negroes were capable 
of enlightenment and improvement. Moreover, they 
introduced an allotment system by which the most 
deserving received a piece of ground for cultivation 
in return for their labour on the Estate. 

Codrington College 

A hundred and fifty years had yet to elapse before 
the time was ripe for an institution in any way ap- 
proaching the intention of the founder. The colony was 
as yet neither sufficiently large nor sufficiently educated ; 
it was, consequently, necessary that the training of boys 
should precede the training of young men. A Grammar 
School was opened in 1745 and was carried on with 
success for many years. Bishop Coleridge, soon after 
his arrival, felt that the time had come to reconstitute 
the foundation on the original design laid down by 
Codrington in his will, with necessary modifications, 
and this happy consummation was brought about in 
1830. Fortunately the right man to take charge of it 
was ready at hand in the person of the Rev. J. H. 
Finder, who had been the Estate's chaplain since 1818. 

The new buildings having been completed, the 
day chosen for the opening of ' Codrington College ' 
was the anniversary of the opening of the Grammar 
School, eighty-five years before. There was accom- 
modation for fifteen students, and the first name 
which appears on the list is W. W. Jackson, who lived 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 103 

to become Bishop of Antigua, and whose son (also 
a Codringtonian) became the well-known Rector of 
Exeter College, Oxford. Of the other original students, 
two hailed from Antigua, one from Trinidad, one from 
Dominica, and one from Bermuda. Thus the College 
was carrying out the aim of the founder in helping the 
whole of the West Indies. It has never confined 
itself to Barbadians ; and has given equal facilities 
to all students, no matter what their race or colour. 
In less than a year a hurricane almost entirely 
destroyed the College, and, after five years of pioneer 
work, Finder was compelled to resign. He came to 
England, and soon after his return became the first 
Principal of Wells Theological College. During his 
time at Codrington forty-nine students passed through 
his hands. 

Finder's successor was the Rev. H. Jones, in whose 
time recruits began to come to the College from England. 
Amongst the latter was W. T. Webb, an Oxford man 
who left the University before taking his degree. He 
was the possessor of one lung, and only a portion of that : 
although he went out to the West Indies ' to die,' we 
shall read later on of his work in the islands. 

Richard Rawle. — Jones was followed by 
Richard Rawle (1846-64), whose story must be told 
in more detail, because he not merely left his mark 
upon the College, but helped to shape the destiny of 
the West Indian Church during a period of over forty 
years. It will appear how he was one of God's chosen 
instruments to guide that Church through critical 
times. He was a great man — as great in humihty as 



104 THE WEST INDIES 

in attainments. ' He was one of my heroes/ said Dean 
Vaughan. 

Born in 1812, he graduated at Cambridge in 1835 
as Third Wrangler and Fourth Classic. The first sphere 
in which he consecrated his talents to the Church was 
an obscure college living (Cheadle), which had been 
refused by fifty other Fellows of Trinity before the offer 
came to him. There he acquired those pastoral gifts 
which made him such a power in his personal dealings 
with men. ' I have long known/ he wrote to a friend, 
' that ''it is not in man that walketh to direct his 
steps/' and that the less the guidance seems to 
rest with self, the better the warrant for good 
results.' 

At the age of thirty-four he went to Barbados, 
where he found the work in a state of utter neglect — 
half a dozen children stragghng in at the negro school ; 
the Grammar School was reduced to two pupils, and 
the Sunday school to none. He resolved not to 
rest until ' the drones had been made to buzz,' in a 
place which ' ought to be a model of Church efficiency 
to all the colonies.' At the College itself, only eight 
students awaited this Cambridge scholar. He summed 
up the situation by writing good-humouredly to a 
correspondent at home that the third syllable of Bar- 
bados was characteristic of the inhabitants as a whole, 
and he was there to wake them up ! When the numbers 
at the College had risen to ten there was a prospect 
of decrease rather than increase, as no more money 
was forthcoming ; yet he was able to write, ' though 
upon a small scale, some good is being done/ 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 105 

It was said in England that a man like Rawle was 
wasted in so narrow a sphere, but Rawle never felt 
hirnself thrown away, nor doubted that he was in the 
place where God w^anted him. He humbly regarded 
himself as specially fitted for this task. And what of 
the results ? ' The making of a few good clergymen 
for the West Indian dioceses is a sufficient result, and 
of the kind which I have ever prayed for, viz. that I 
might be at the bottom of ever so much good, but, hke 
the roots of a tree, out of sight — with no visible pro- 
minence.' It mattered nothing to him whether he 
was training a white man or a black, for he held that 
the colour of a man's complexion had no more to do 
with his character or his intellect than the colour of 
his hair or his eyes. Of his students, one became a 
Bishop, three Archdeacons, and another v/as Dr. 
Jackson, already referred to as the Rector of an 
Oxford College. He took as his motto the word 
' thorough,' and the result of his work may be 
attributed, under God's blessing, to his acting on the 
principle which this involved. 

For seventeen years he rem.ained at his post, though 
at one time he resigned it in order to lead the Mission 
in West Africa — an attack of yellow fever, however, 
preventing the execution of this plan ; in 1859 he was 
offered, and declined, the bishopric of Antigua. Many 
years afterwards he accepted the bishopric of Trinidad, 
and when he could no longer cope with the responsi- 
bility it entailed, he returned as an old man to Barbados 
to take up his former work in an honorary capacity. 
He was weakened by long residence in the tropics, and 



io6 THE WEST INDIES 

saddened by the recent death of his wife, but as no one 
else could be found to fill the principalship at the time, 
he recognised the Call of God and obeyed. 

He was spared for only seven months longer, when 
another and a final call came, w^hich he obeyed more 
readily than any that had come in the past. His cof&n 
was carried to the foot of the steep hill leading to the 
cemetery by aged black men, whose places were at that 
spot to be taken by a relay of younger ones ; but old as 
they were, heeding neither the scorching sun nor the 
steepness of the hill, they refused to lay their beloved 
burden down until its earthly resting-place was reached. 



Other Principals of Codrington 

Rawle was succeeded by W. T. Webb, who, with 
his one lung, had survived nearly twenty years' residence 
in the island already, and held the principalship for 
another twenty years. Eventually he returned as a 
virile old man to England, and accepted a bleak Lin- 
colnshire living, which he retained for twelve years 
before he died. His career speaks well for the Bar- 
badian climate. It was during his time, and through 
the exertions of Bishop Mitchinson, that the College 
was af&Hated to Durham University. By this means 
students have been able to obtain the degrees of that 
University ; the papers are sent out from Durham, 
the ansvvers examxined in Durham, and the student 
can receive the degree without ever setting foot on 
EngHsh soil. 

Webb's successor was the Rev. A. Caldecott, now 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 107 

a professor at King's College, London. His stay was 
but a short one, and the names of those who have since 
held the post of Principal are, Preb. Merrick, Bishop 
Rawle (for a few months, as we have seen), and Dr. 
T. H. Bindley. The present head is the Rev. A. H. 
Anstey, who was formerly Principal of St. Boniface, 
Warminster. One of its most famous tutors was the 
late Mr. William Grey (afterwards the Earl of Stamford), 
who was in the first batch to be hcensed as diocesan 
lay-readers by Dr. Temple in 1891. 



The Bicentenary 

In 1910, the bicentenary of the Codrington trust 
was observed both in Barbados (in April) and in 
England (in October). Simultaneous services were 
held in London, Oxford, Wells, and Durham.. The 
College could look back and thank God for a record 
of 400 students, including Bishops, chief justices, 
physicians, planters, and men of leading in every 
colony of the West Indies. The S.P.G. voted a large 
sum to the College out of its Bicentenary Fund, and 
signaUsed the occasion by handing over the local 
management of the College to the General Synod of 
the West Indies. 

Since the bicentenary the College has sprung into 
new hfe. Our opportunity at the present time is so to 
foster and develop its work that it maj^ advance from 
great things to greater. In an age of enhghtenment, 
a learned ministry and a devoted laity are as essential 
abroad as at home. 



io8 THE WEST INDIES 

II. — The Windward Islands 

The diocese of the Windward Islands, which was 
formed out of Barbados in 1879, includes St. Lucia, St. 
Vincent, Grenada, and the chain of islands stretching 
between St. Vincent and Grenada, called the Grenadines. 
Formerly it included Tobago, which now belongs to 
the diocese of Trinidad. It has its own diocesan 
organisation, a cathedral chapter, and an episcopal 
endowment fund, but it has never yet been able to 
afford a Bishop of its own. The Bishop of Barbados pays 
periodical visits to the islands, and holds the double see. 

The story of this diocese is a story of poverty 
heroically borne. At one time these islands were endowed 
and wealthy ; to-day they are disendowed and poverty- 
stricken. There is a lack at once of men, of equipment, 
and of money. One man has to cope with the work 
which was formerly done by two, and in some cases by 
three. A few years ago (1906) a clergyman found 
himself more than once ' without a penny a week's 
subsistence beyond the Sunday offertory, which averaged 
less than four shilHngs,' pending the arrival of aid from 
the S.P.G. 

Although the usual rate of wages is only from half 
a crown to four shillings and twopence a week for a 
man, and half these amounts for women, the congrega- 
tion raised £88 for their ov/n Church purposes in 1909, 
and managed to spare £l for the General Fund of the 
S.P.G. 

The S.P.G. has done Mission work in these islands 
since 1712, and has six clergy working in connection 



BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 109 

with it at the present time. There is a total population 
of over 180,000, spread over a scattered area of 500 
square miles. ' More helpers ' is the burden of their cry. 

Scholars and saints 

The heritage of Barbados in the past, and her great 
need to-day, is the saint and the scholar. We have 
seen how God guided thither such a one — Dr. Rawle — 
showing that he was the man He wanted for the work. 
Doubtless the call was just as clear in the other cases in 
their different circumstances. Their teaching has laid 
the foundation, and their example has suggested the 
superstructure, upon which the Church in the West 
Indies has for many years been reared. Sound doctrine 
and accurate knowledge are as essential in a Church 
as energy and activity. ' There go ten thousand,' a far- 
seeing student of human affairs once remarked, pointing 
to an undergraduate at one of our English Universities. 

The Church needs practical workers, but not those 
who are ignorant : in order to do work which shall abide 
they must be instructed workers. People who have 
' no time ' for quiet thought and study will quickly 
join the ranks of the non-effectives. There is no one 
so forceful, no one so humble, no one so sympathetic 
as the true student — the student who adopts Glad- 
stone's motto and ' makes his exports balance his 
imports.' 

In its limited numbers and in its practical and 
spiritual aims, Codrington College resembles our modern 
Study Circle, which influences the many through a 
chosen few. 



no THE WEST INDIES 

The whole story of the College will never be told. 
The majority of those who have gone forth from its 
cloisters can only be followed by the imagination. 
Their names are inscribed on the College roll, but their 
doings are in the hearts of men. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

' Memoir of Bishop Rawle.' C. J. Blaff. 

* Bicentenary of Codrington.' Mission Field. Jan. 1910, p. 22 ; 

Feb. 1910, p. 59 ; April 1910, p. 120 ; Dec. 1911, p. 368. 
'Annals of Codrington College.' T. H. Bindley. (West Indian 
Committee. 15. net.) 

* Notes upon the Island of Dominica.* S. Grieve. (Black.) 
'Handbook of Barbados.' E. G. Sinckler. (Duckworth.) 



CHAPTER VI 

ANTIGUA, BRITISH QUIANA, AND TRINIDAD 

I. — The diocese of Antigua 

The island of Antigua received its name from Columbus, 
who called it after a church in Seville named Santa 
Maria la Antigua (pronounced Anteega). One of the 
things for which it is remarkable is its lack of water, 
and the ingenuity which its inhabitants have displayed 
in overcoming this disadvantage. Curiously enough, 
the Caribs originally called the island Jamaica, which, 
in the language of the contemporary Arawaks of the 
larger islands, meant a 'land of wood and water,' and 
yet there are no rivers, and hardly any water is to be 
found except when dug for in wells or collected in 
tanks. The roof of the cathedral is rented by Govern- 
ment because of its usefulness for collecting rain, which 
is stored in underground cisterns. Thus the cathedral, 
in a literal as well as spiritual sense, helps to bring 
showers of blessing to the people. 

Not the roof only but the ground on which the 
cathedral stands is worthy of our attention, for it 
witnessed a shedding of blood connected with the 
notorious name of Governor Park. This man's tragic 



112 THE WEST INDIES 

end, in the words of Bryan Edvv^ards, 'excited the 
attention of Europe, and furnished a lesson for his- 
tory/ An American by birth, a tyrant by nature, 
he feared neither God nor man. Yet, on account of 
his exploits under the Duke of Marlborough, whose 
aide-de-camp he was, he was appointed Governor 
of the Leeward Islands with Antigua as his head- 
quarters. There he made himself dreaded and hated. 
To the piteous appeals of the islanders he was deaf ; his 
recall by the home Government he ignored. At length 
the inhabitants, convinced that forbearance was a 
greater crime than resistance, seized him, ' tore him 
into a thousand pieces, and scattered his reeking limbs 
in the street.' 

The handsome stone cathedral is surmounted by 
two octagonal domes, one at either end. Within, it 
is fitted with galleries, lined with pitch pine as a 
precaution against earthquakes, and adorned with 
many monuments of those who have toiled on the 
island in days gone by. 

It is, however, with those who are toihng there now 
that we are concerned, and not in the Island of Antigua 
alone, but in the thirteen islands of various nationalities 
which go to make up the diocese of Antigua — including 
Dominica (pronounced Domineeca), Montserrat, St. 
Kitts, and Nevis, which are Enghsh ; St. Bartholomew 
(French) ; St. Martin (half Dutch, half French) ; St. 
Croix and St. Thomas (Danish). So varied are the 
nationalities to whom the Bishop ministers as he goes 
on his visitation tours, that within a month he finds 
himself praying in the State collects on one Sunday for 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 113 

King George, on another for King Christian of Denmark, 
on a third for Queen Wilhehnina of Holland, and on 
a fourth for the President of the French RepubUc. 
The difficulty of ruling a diocese broken up into many 
parts involves constant travel and great expense. A 
dream of the Bishop is that some day he will have a 
yacht for the diocese, which will enable him to get 
about more quickly and safely. The travelling at 
times has to be done in small open boats, which add 
* perils of waters ' to the difficulties which the Bishop 
and clergy have to face. 

The negroes 

Although the islands contain colonists from many 
European countries, and a large number of Creoles, 
no less than eighty-five per cent, of the population 
consist of negroes, who are freed slaves or descendants 
of slaves. The work of the parish clergy hes chiefly 
among these people and mulattoes, who are the off- 
spring of the black and white races. Here, as elsewhere 
in the West Indies, the negroes are still in the position 
of youthful Christians. Nor is their lack of spiritual 
development to be wondered at when we recollect that 
their parents in the days of slavery were valued mainly 
for the price they would fetch, or for the work they 
could do. Whatever forms of worship and whatever 
prayers they learned from their masters, they in- 
corporated with their old African rites and supersti- 
tions. Hence they retain a reverence for ' jrunbies ' 
and charms, and a behef in their old god Obi. 

The baptismal registers of the eighteenth century 



114 THE WEST INDIES 

show that the rector of a parish could, without apparent 
inconsistency, be an owner of slaves. The record of the 
vestry minutes in a certain parish states that the rector 
refused to visit or baptise slaves without further 
remuneration, as he had only been employed to minister 
to the white population. No wonder then that the 
negro is still morally and spiritually in his childhood, 
and, like a child, is easily pleased, easily influenced, 
easily led, and, therefore, easily yields to the tempta- 
tions and succumbs to the pitfalls of youth. 

Special failings. — Immorality abounds un- 
checked. Marriage in the days of slavery was, as a 
rule, prohibited to the slave, and the custom has made 
slow progress in the days of freedom. We referred to 
this question when studying Jamaica, and it is only 
necessary to add here that experience in the diocese of 
Antigua proves that the negro has shown himself, 
under good influences, to be the most faithful of 
husbands and the tenderest and kindest of fathers, 
and that the women have proved to be equally good 
wives and mothers. It is encouraging, moreover, to 
note that in two of the islands of this diocese the 
baptism of an illegitimate child is a rare occurrence. 

Another weak point is intemperance, which is 
rendered the more prevalent on account of the easy 
access which the native has to ' grog.' In some places, 
however, he is protected against himself by the low 
rate of his wages, as he cannot get intoxicated on 
what he can spare from his daily needs. Temperance 
Societies are at work, and are training the women and 
children in the habits of sobriety. In this matter 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 115 

employers and social superiors can effect much by 
their example, as the child-like negro is a born 
imitator. 

Drawbacks to prog^ress. — Too often the influence 
of the white man is a hindrance instead of being, as 
it should be, the greatest help to the missionary. A 
white man and a Christian — should be synonymous 
terms. The missionary's words may fall unheeded or 
be forgotten, but the white man's example is remem- 
bered and followed. This holds true, not in Antigua 
nor in the West Indies only, but all the world over. 

Another handicap is created by the conditions of 
living. A native's house usually consists of a hut 
containing one or two rooms. In these a man and his 
wife with five or six children are frequently to be found. 
Suppose the father or one of the elder children has a 
desire to improve his education after the day's work 
is done. In the first place, the only artificial hght is 
furnished by a bottle filled with kerosine from which a 
wick peers through a piece of tin. In the second place, 
the student may not be the only inmate of the room, 
and he will not be allowed to sit up ' wasting oil ' when 
his elders want to go to sleep. The Church, by means 
of its adult and juvenile Sunday schools, strives to 
give them something to think about week by week. 
It provides the only intellectual stimulus which many 
have, and they frequently show their appreciation of 
the help which is thus provided. 

The most serious drawback of all is, perhaps, the lack 
of incentive and ambition to rise, which is a result of 
living in small and poor communities. There can be 



ii6 THE WEST INDIES 

no room for expansion in these islands, where hfe is 
monotonous, society unchangeable, and where the 
planter remains a planter, and the labourer a labourer 
from generation to generation. 

Points of encouragement. — In spite of these 
circumstances, the negro is by no means hopelessly 
degraded. His ' unwavering faith in the goodness, 
love, and mercy of God,' says Canon Watson of the island 
of St. Croix, ' and his conception of Him as a Father,' 
are specially noticeable. In 1899 a hurricane devastated 
the island of Montserrat and ruined every church. 
When the clergyman was trying to comfort the negro 
Christians upon the loss of their huts and property, 
their answer was, ' It is God's doing, and if He 
didn't spare His own house we mustn't grumble if He 
didn't spare ours.' 

If faith is one of the negro's good traits, self-help 
is another. Hard pressed as he is, he gives royally of 
his little. The ordinary weekly subscription in this 
diocese is id. a week, but in the Danish islands one man, 
whose daily wage is lod., spares 2^d. a week for the school 
in addition to subscriptions for other purposes. The 
Bishop tells of a church which was built on one of the 
islands with money received from the labourers on 
the neighbouring estate, without any help from 
outside. 

Bishop Mather, formerly of Antigua, describes the 
workers in this diocese as ' self-denying, hardworking, 
and patient, while poor in this world's goods.' Again, 
he writes — ' A horse of some sort is necessary. The 
clergyman's horse partakes in one respect of its owner's 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 117 

character, for it is much on its knees, and usually shows 
by its ribs that too much attention is not spent upon 
its food/ 

The present Bishop, Edward Hutson, was educated 
in Barbados, and was consecrated at Jamaica in 1911. 
He is the son of Archdeacon Hutson, who serves under 
him and has completed sixty years of service as a 
missionary in the West Indies. 



II. — The diocese of Guiana 

British Guiana, the sohtary foothold of Great Britain 
on the South American continent, is the largest, the 
southernmost, and the easternmost of our West Indian 
colonies. Anthony TroUope called it ' the Elysium of 
the tropics, the trans- Atlantic Eden.' The Eldorado, 
or lake of golden sands, in days gone by, it is now known 
as Demerara, the land of sugar. The Eldorado myth 
reminds us of that bag of gold which was supposed to 
await the successful adventurer at the foot of the rainbow. 
A Spanish soldier, so runs the legend, was set adrift on 
the Orinoco river. Finding his way back months after- 
wards he told how he had been taken by Indians to a 
great inland lake with golden sands, on which stood a 
vast city roofed with gold. 

Sir Walter Raleigh was one of those who staked their 
all in the quest for this fabled treasure. He brought no 
gold away with him from Guiana, but, like Livingstone 
in Africa, he left, as a legacy, a kindly feeling towards 
Enghshmen in the hearts of the Indians, which made 
it easier for others to follow in his tracks. It remained 



ii8 THE WEST INDIES 

for our own generation to discover that both gold and 
diamonds are to be found in the country. 

We, to-day, seek greater treasure still — jewels for 
the crown of Christ, in the shape of human souls : and, 
as for their hue, does there exist in all the world a region 
where such variety is to be found ? Here are black 
people from Africa, brown people from India, yellow 
people from China, white people from Europe, besides 
the red-tinted aboriginal inhabitants of the countrj^ 

The area of British Guiana is shghtly less than that 
of Great Britain. It is divided into three large counties, 
which derive their names from the three rivers that 
form their boundaries, \i.z. Berbice on the east, Demerara 
in the centre, and Essequibo on the west. The 
Demerara is about the size of the Thames, and yet 
it is not half the length of either of the other two rivers. 
All three of them are blocked by rapids from fifty to 
a hundred miles inland. In the future the rivers of 
Guiana may become sources of power almost mthout 
limit. The potentialities which lie, for instance, in 
their falls and rapids should render electric energy 
available and cheap. The Kaietur Fall, which is five 
times the height of Niagara, awaits human enterprise, 
for as yet its power is hardly utilised at all. 

The inhabited portion of the colony extends along 
a narrow stretch of coast 200 miles in length, and 
from one to six miles in depth. Here, within an area 
of 300 square miles, live more than 300,000 people. 
Georgetown and New Amsterdam are the onty towns 
of importance. The \allages, which alternate mth 
plantations, represent ruined estates of the old planters, 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD iig 

who, after the emancipation, sold them to the former 
slaves. Sugar has long since superseded tobacco 
as the leading industry, and has made the name of 
Demerara hterally a household word. 

The clergy at work in the diocese number forty, 
and there are about loo catechists and schoolmasters. 

Some notable pioneers 

An Apostolic Bishop. — ^Wilham Piercy x\ustin, 
the first Bishop of Guiana, was consecrated in 1842, 
before which date the colony formed a rural deanery 
of the huge diocese of Barbados. He ruled the 
diocese for fifty years. He stood six feet two inches, and 
in 1829, while an undergraduate, he was instrumental 
in organizing the first Oxford and Cambridge boat- 
race. Queen Victoria at the time of his consecration 
described him as ' her youngest and handsomest Bishop,' 
and eventually appointed him Prelate of the Order 
of St. Michael and St. George. 

In 1 831 he arrived in Georgetown in order to fill 
a gap, without any intention of making it his home, 
and little dreaming that the greater part of his sixty-one 
remaining years were to be spent in the colony. When, 
in 1883, the various dioceses of the West Indies were 
united into a Province, he became its first Primate, 
and he was at that time the senior Bishop of the 
whole English Church. The day of his election was 
his seventy-sixth birthday, and he lived to guide the 
Church in the West Indies until he was eighty-five. 
Towards the end of his life he was able to say that 
when he was consecrated not one of his fellow-Bishops 



120 THE WEST INDIES 

had been bom ! To the end he made his visitations in 
open boats on the numerous rivers by which alone the 
interior can be reached, holding confirmations, building 
churches, and showing himself in his humble way a 
pattern to his flock. WTiile still in harness he celebrated 
the jubilee of his episcopate in 1892, even then, in the 
words of one of his clergy, ' enduring hardness that ought 
to put to shame the carpet-sUpper labours of younger men/ 
* The Apostle of the Indians.' — Another house- 
hold word in Guiana is the name of WilHam 
Henry Brett, who, during his forty years of service, 
earned imperishable fame as ' The Apostle of the 
Indians of Guiana.' Born at Dover in 1818, he was in 
his early days a tailor's apprentice, and was led to 
offer himself for missionary work by reading the ' Life 
of Henry Martyn.' He went to Guiana in 1840, as the 
first missionary to the Indians to be employed by the 
S.P.G. He was first sent to estabhsh a Mission in the 
Pomeroon district, and the tribes to whom he went 
were described by a magistrate, who was at first 
unfriendly to missionary effort, as ' the most disorderly 
people in any part of Guiana.' Murders and violence 
were of frequent occurrence. Among these people 
Brett set to work. Far from giving him a welcome, 
they resisted and opposed him in every way in their 
power. The sorcerers threatened that any who paid 
heed to him would sicken and dj.e. For five years he 
waited and worked and prayed. His residence was 
a tumble-down hut, and tigercats and snakes were the 
companions of his solitude. x\t last a sorcerer braved 
all threats, and, after receiving instruction, was admitted 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 121 

into the Church, having received the name of Cornehus. 
Henceforward the work advanced with leaps and 
bounds, and the magistrate quoted above was able 
to report : ' Now the case is reversed. No outrages of 
any description. The Indians attend Divine Service, 
they dress neatly, are lawfully married, and as a body 
there are no people, in point of general conduct, to 
surpass them. This change was brought about solely 
by missionary labour.' 

Let us visit this Mission-station, in the company of 
one who knows it well at the present day and who writes : 
' It is called Cabacaburi, and is situated on the River 
Pomeroon. At the foot of a hill is a mound, which, when 
excavated, was found to contain the bones of animals 
and human beings. The skulls had been cracked open 
and the larger bones spHt, evidently to get at the brains 
and marrow.' This was one of the spots, familiar to 
readers of ' Robinson Crusoe,' v/here cannibal feasts were 
wont to be held in the West Indies. ' On this very spot 
we now see a church, attended daily by the descendants 
of these people. ' Such a church, on such a spot, is worthy 
of being placed alongside of the cathedral in Zanzibar, 
which stands on the site of what was once a slave-market. 
Mr. Brett, later in his career, was ordained and con- 
tinued his work among the Indians until his exhausted 
health compelled him to seek rest in England, where 
he died on the day, almost at the hour, on which 
forty-six years before he had left the shores of 
England for those of Guiana. In a spirit of touching 
humihty his last words were, ' Gentle Saviour, pass me 
not by.' 



122 THE WEST INDIES 

W. E. Pierce. — ^Another career, which deserves 
mention, though short and tragic in contrast to the 
lengthy and romantic one we have described, is that 
of the Rev. W. E. Pierce. After serving for some years 
in Jamaica, he went in 1880 to take up evangelistic work 
in Guiana, where he founded the Potaro Mission. The 
following year, when passing one of the falls of the 
Essequibo river with his wife, four children, and nurse, 
the boat lurched over on its side, and the party were 
engulfed in the rushing waters, from which one child 
alone was rescued. It is supposed that Mr. Pierce was 
the victim of his own conscientiousness, for he would 
employ only communicants as his boatmen, whether 
competent or not, and the accident was due to defective 
steering, a fault unusual with experienced Indians. 

It is now time to look more closely at the population 
of Guiana, which is largely made up of aborigines and 
of imported cooHes. 

The inhabitants 

The aboriginal Indian. — ^The historical son of 
the soil, the real wild Indian, is disappearing from 
the coast regions. He still exists, however, in the far 
interior, hving in much the same way as he did when 
America was discovered, except that he does not fight, 
and that, even though he be a Carib, he does not any 
longer eat human flesh. The Akawois is a wandering 
trader, the gypsy of British Guiana. The Warau is a 
maker of canoes, and hves in huts raised above the mud 
fiats on the stems of the Eta palm, a habit which once 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 123 

earned for him the reputation of Hving in the trees. The 
Arawak inhabits the creeks not far from the coast. 
Besides these there are the Macuso, the Wapisiana, and 
the Arecuna. 

Practically the entire furniture of an Indian forest- 
shed or hut consists of nets swung from the rafters and 
called ' hamakas/ whence w^e derive our hammock — 
both the word and the article. The staff of life is cassava ; 
other foods are sweet potatoes, yams, and Indian corn. 
The woman does all the planting ; the man does the 
hunting and the fishing. As for his weapons, guns are 
now common, but the bow and arrow are still used, 
especially for shooting large fish. The blowpipe with 
poisoned darts is used for birds and monkeys. 

Although he is no tiller of the soil, the Indian is bj'^ 
no means useless to the community. As a guide, as 
a boatman, occasionally as a carrier of loads (if special 
inducements are held out to him), he is indispensable. 
Now that the wood-cutter and the gold-digger overrun 
the country and are driving him into the wilds, it is 
evident that something must be done for him. The 
Church is following him ; and, indeed, he is crjang out 
for the ministrations of religion, whereas in earlier daj^^s 
he steeled himself against them. 

Formerly, for twenty-one years, the Church 
Missionary Society had a flourishing Mission among 
the Indians, but pressing calls elsewhere resulted in 
its withdrawal. At the present time all the outside 
help which the diocese receives is from the S.P.G. 
A considerable time must elapse before the work can 
become self-supporting. The Bishop a few years 



124 THE WEST INDIES 

ago was visiting a new inland clearing and met with 
a welcome which showed that the Spirit of God was 
working in the hearts of these people, and that they 
were aUve to the duty of giving as well as receiving in 
order that the work in their midst may be advanced. 
The catechist in charge was a pure Arawak, a man who 
gave up regular employment and accepted a lower wage 
in order to do Church work among his people. 

In 1908 the Rev. J. WilUams set out to start a Mission 
in the interior. His long journey was made entirely 
by water. On the Essequibo river he spent two days 
in steamers, and three days in boats in which he had 
to traverse several dangerous cataracts. Mrs. Williams 
accompanied her husband. The industrial side of the 
Mission work was in the charge of Mr. J. Martin, formerly 
a British soldier in Burma, and afterwards a Scripture 
Reader in the South African war. 

After several escapes from shipwreck, they reached 
their destination on the Rupununi river, where the 
Indians, who proved to be friendly, allowed them to 
occupy a hut with mud walls and a palm-leaf roof, con- 
taining two rooms and a tiny kitchen. Until, three 
months later, they were able to build a Mission house 
and a church, this hut formed their home. The church 
is thus described by a lady worker who joined this 
band of pioneers : 

' Our church is very poor. It is under our rooms, and 
has no seats, windows or doors, only spaces, and a small 
portion of mud raised up for an altar, which is railed off 
by a rough piece of wood. The people sit on logs or on 
the floor. We usually have about a hundred on Sunday.' 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 125 

The work is going ahead, and has grown to such an 
extent as to cover the whole highlands between the 
Rupununi and Potaro rivers. By walking more than 
400 miles over rough ground and under a tropical sun, 
Mr. and Mrs. Wilhams estabHshed a chain of nine 
stations between these two rivers. 

The Rev. W. G. and Mrs. White have succeeded to 
the task of carrying on this mission. They are seeking 
to give the Indians a phonetic script with one sound 
only to each sign ; to help them in developing their 
own industries ; to lead them towards a knowledge of 
God through Christ, and persuade them to abandon 
their superstitions and the resulting atrocities. 

Imported coolies. — Since the emancipation, British 
Guiana, like Jamaica and Trinidad, has been obhged to 
go to the East for labourers. When the negroes were 
freed they soon began to show an unwiUingness to work 
regularly in the fields and at a fixed wage. Moreover, 
the negro, as he rose in the scale of civihsation, became 
ambitious 'to wield the pen rather than the shovel.' 
Many, as time went on, entered the learned professions, 
and have proved excellent lawyers, doctors, and ministers 
of reUgion. Ruin stared the planters in the face, 
and they were driven to import cooHes from India and 
China. Their period of indenture was for five years, and 
at the end of that time the coolies were free to return 
or to remain, as they preferred. An increasing number 
have chosen to make the colony their home : over 
100,000 East Indians are thus settled in British Guiana. 
In this way it has come about that the East and 
the West have met, presenting a new problem with 



126 THE WEST INDIES 

which the Church has to cope. The success which has 
attended its efforts is a striking testimony to the adapta- 
bihty of the Christian Faith in the diocese. The student 
of Missions will appreciate the difficulty of ministering 
at once to Africans, East Indians, Chinese, West Indians, 
and our own countrymen. 

East Indians. — The transition from the nine- 
teenth to the twentieth century has shifted the problem 
from the newly arrived immigrant to his descendant, 
the Creole, or colonial-born East Indian. In one 
important respect the work is easier, for the barrier in 
the shape of caste, which is almost insurmountable in 
India, does not exist in this land. Travel in a foreign 
country and observation of other people have the effect 
of widening the mind. Few, as yet, of the East 
Indians have become Christians. The main hindrance 
to the development of missionary work among them 
is lack of funds. The opportunity is a great and a 
pressing one. The majority of converts come from 
the Brahman caste, because it is more enlightened and, 
therefore, more open to outside influences, although 
in their native land the opposite is the case. By 
a flanking movement India itself can thus be at- 
tacked ; for if this opportunity is utilised, a prejudiced 
Brahman may return to India a missionary-hearted 
Christian. Were it not for the annual grant of the 
S.P.G., httle or nothing could be attempted in this 
direction. 

The Chinese. — ^Then there are the Chinese. ' I 
venture to state,' says Archdeacon Josa, of George- 
town, ' that ninety out of every hundred of our Chinese 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 127 

in British Guiana are now Christians.' What kind of 
Christians do they make ? we ask. ' Not rice-Christians. 
On the contrary, they are most hberal contributors to 
all Church funds. They are upright in their dealings, 
and a Chinese man's word is his bond. I only wish 
that we had a few more of these good fellows.' The 
same writer records the following incident : 

'Plantation Sheldon is one of the stations where a 
Mission was started in the 'sixties, and has continued 
ever since. Of late years the catechist was a man who 
had certain secular duties, and therefore received a 
small salary. When leaving the colony he called on 
the Bishop to bid him good-bye, and, said he, ''I have 
left the money in the bank." ''The money! what 
money ? " replied the Bishop. The catechist answered, 
'' The salary I have received from the Church I have 
left in the bank for the benefit of the Church." ' 

He had not spent a penny upon himself of the 
money received for his duties. These had been labours 
of love, and were sufficient reward in themselves. 

Men of abihty and men filled with the Spirit of God 
are urgently needed in British Guiana, if this oppor- 
tunity is not to be allowed to slip past us ; and not 
men only, but the means to maintain them. 

III. — The diocese of Trinidad 

In shape and size the island of Trinidad bears a 
striking resemblance to Wales. It is situated about 
seven miles from the north coast of South America, and 
was discovered by Columbus in 1498, and named by 
him ' La Trinidad,' after the three mountains which 



128 THE WEST INDIES 

he espied from the masthead as he approached its 
shores. It thereupon became a Spanish colony. A 
hundred years later it was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, 
who, like Canon Trotter in later days (though for a 
different purpose), made it his base for an expedition 
to the mainland opposite. During three centuries it 
remained under Spanish rule, and its capital is named 
Port of Spain. A quarrel having occurred between 
Spain and Great Britain in 1797, the British fleet under 
Abercromby attacked and captured Port of Spain, and 
so Trinidad came into our hands. The population still 
contains Spanish and French elements, and there is a 
strong Roman CathoUc community. The beauty of 
the island is described by Kingsley in glowing terms 
in 'At Last.' 

Pitch, sugar, and cocoa 

A stranger is always much interested in the Pitch 
Lake, a huge country of asphalt some 114 acres in 
extent, in the south-west corner of the island. The 
pitch is apparently so sohd that people walk and 
even drive across it. The heaviest cart makes no 
deeper impression upon it with its wheels than 
it would on an asphalt road at home in the heat of 
summer. And yet a massive hole dug out to-day will 
be filled up again to-morrow by pitch which rises 
from below. A large amount is used for asphalt 
work in England. It brings in to the Government of 
Trinidad an annual income of some £35,000. It was 
visited by Sir Walter Raleigh and used by him to 
caulk his ships. 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 129 

Moreover, the cocoa and sugar industries have given 
Trinidad a world-wide fame. There has been a great 
increase of late in cocoa-growing, and now the area under 
cocoa cultivation is nearly double that of sugar. Among 
large growers are Messrs. Cadbury & Co., whose estates 
are at Maracas, in the north of the island. Cocoa is 
prepared from an evergreen plant, the fruit of which is 
in the form of a pod, resembling in size and shape a 
small cucumber. Each pod contains a number of seeds 
closely packed in a pulp. The seeds are separated 
from the surrounding pulp, and are allowed to undergo 
fermentation, either in covered barrels or under a layer 
of earth. During this process they acquire a pecuHar 
flavour, which varies with the method of fermentation 
used. They are next dried in covered sheds, and are 
ready for the market. 

The founding of the diocese 

Up to the time of disestabUshment, Trinidad formed 
part of the diocese of Barbados. When this occurred, 
the clergy and laity of Trinidad resolved to have a 
Bishop of their own — the man to whom we have 
already referred and who was for some time Principal 
of Codrington College, Richard Rawle. At the time of 
his election as Bishop he was vicar of Tamworth. 

Let him tell the story in his own words : 

' My leaving Tamworth was brought about by a 
presentiment that I should have a letter in the morning 
calhng me thence. I made no doubt of it, awoke with 
the same impression, and found it exactly as expected. 
It was a letter from Trinidad, which, as I knew the 
West Indian mail had been delivered two days previous. 



130 THE WEST INDIES 

I could not possibly have had a notion of getting by 
that day's post. It had been inclosed to somebody, 
and re-posted. The final result was from that moment a 
certainty. ... It has been my prayer all along to be 
disposed of by better than my own wisdom ; not to 
unsettle myself from any post by impatience under 
troubles or disappointments at results, but to have plain 
signs given me when a move was to be made.' 

Although he had refused a bishopric when Antigua 
was offered him, and the bishopric of New Zealand on 
Bishop Selwyn's retirement, this summons seemed to 
him to come from God, and the consecration took place 
in Lichfield cathedral, on St. Peter's Day, 1872. A 
great demonstration awaited him at Trinidad, but it 
is characteristic of the man that he insisted on being 
received in quite humble fashion. 

The labouring population was then, as now, a motley 
of natives drawn by high wages from Hindustan, 
Madeira, Africa, China, and from other parts of the West 
Indies. His task was that of a pioneer, but he had a 
passionate yearning to get at the hearts of his people, 
and was often to be found in the leper settlement or at 
the hospital bedside. During the seventeen years of 
his episcopate he was instrimiental in building, or re- 
building, nine parish churches and twelve mission-halls, 
largely at his own expense. 

Even the labours of seventeen years in Barbados 
and seventeen in Trinidad did not complete the 
services he rendered in the West Indies, for he 
returned in his ripe old age to the former sphere, 
where his grave now summons a younger generation 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA. TRINIDAD 131 

to follow in his steps, by the dedication of their talent 
and substance to the cause of Christ. 

There have been two Bishops since Dr. Rawle, the 
present holder of the see being Bishop Welsh. 

Missionary work 

As in the other islands, the African slaves brought 
many of their superstitions wdth them to Trinidad. For 
the past eighty years the S.P.G. and the S.P.C.K. have 
been active in taking the light of the Gospel to these 
inhabitants of the Dark Continent, and with such success 
that they may be said to have been brought, at any rate 
nominally, into the fold of Christ. 

The Indian immigrants are for the most part Budd- 
hists or Hindus, but their rehgion has little vitaHty. 
The Trinidad Indian ' vnll perform his daily functions 
according to a certain ritual ; he wiU eat or drink or 
sit or stand or wash after certain forms. But ask him 
why, and he knows not ; ceremony and form are left 
to him, but the life and spirit are gone.' What an 
opportunity Ues before the Church to-day, under God, 
to bring it about that Trinidad, and the West Indies 
generally, shall become a centre from which light may 
radiate upon the immigrants, and from them be reflected 
upon their native lands. 

Two outposts 

Attached to the diocese, but twenty miles to 
the north-east of Trinidad, is the httle island of Tobago, 
upon which, according to the imagination of Daniel 
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe was wrecked in 1659, at the age 



132 THE WEST INDIES 

of twenty-seven, and from which he was rescued when 
he was fifty-four. The descriptions in this immortal 
work fit the island, and Crusoe's Cave is one of its 
show places. His man ' Friday ' — who is supposed to 
have hailed from Trinidad — was a typical Arawak of 
those times, and his cannibal foes were typical Caribs. 
One half of the population of Tobago are members of 
the Church of England, and though too poor to con- 
tribute much money, they bring eggs, vegetables, and 
occasionally a chicken, towards the support of the 
twelve churches on their island. 

Another outpost is the region of Venezuela on the 
mainland, where for the past few years Canon Trotter 
has been at work among the miners of the Orinoco. 
He tells a thrilling tale of a ' prospecting ' visit he paid 
in 1910, hunting out isolated British subjects in that 
vast country. At Ciudad Bolivar, a friendly consul 
placed two large bedrooms at his disposal for a service, 
the furniture being removed. Nearly 200 trooped in, 
many of whom had never been at a Church service in 
their Uves, and others never since they came to the 
country twenty or thirty years before. Nine of them 
stayed behind for Holy Communion. Passing on, 
a ride of 135 miles brought him to a mining camp. 
His was the first visit from an Anglican priest they 
had ever had, and he was consequently regarded as 
a ' curiosity/ Here on Good Friday he collected a 
congregation. One man told him that he had not 
joined in a Service for thirty-five years. Upon 
whom does the responsibihty for this state of things 
rest ? 



ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 133 

Writing two years later (1912), he describes another 
of his annual visits to the Orinoco district. 

On the way the ship struck a rock, and the hold 
fiUed in a few minutes. After narrowly escaping 
drowning, he was exposed to the tropical sun, and 
without food for the whole day. ' This lost me a 
Sunday at BoHvar,' is his only remark. After holding 
a service in a hall used for cock-fighting he was asked 
to come again, and in order to do so he had to under- 
take a ride of 250 miles overland, a journey which he was 
strongly advised not to attempt. ' But I so often hear 
the word '' impossible,'' ' he writes, ' that I have got to 
pay little attention to it. I made the journey.' A 
drought rendered it a trjdng one, and kept him fifteen 
days in the saddle instead of six or seven. ' This cost 
me another Sunday ; but,' he adds, ' the journey was 
worth making.' 

He concludes his account with these touching 
words : 

' At my age — I am now over 70 — I cannot look forward 
to many more, if any, of these long and rough journeys, 
though I can stiU keep on the work on the coast as 
hitherto, and can advise and help a young priest sent 
out for this and other parts of the work. Three, besides 
myself, are really needed for Venezuela if our people 
are reaUy to be shepherded.' 

With these brave words of a brave man we take 
leave of the West Indies. ' // our people are to be 
shepherded ! ' In our response to this appeal, echoed 
from each of the eight dioceses, lies our Opportunity in 
the West Indies. 



134 THE WEST INDIES 

BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

^ The Land of the Peaks and the Pampas/ Jesse Page. 3s. 6di 

* Twenty- five Years in British Guiana.' H. Kirke. 

* Mission Work in Guiana.' W. H. Brett. 

* Legends and Myths of British Guiana.' W. H: Brett. 

* Ten Years in British Guiana:' W. T. Veness. 

*The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana.' F. P. L. Josa. (Wells 
Gardner. 6s.) 

* Notes on the History of the Church in Guiana.' T. Farrar. 

■ Work among Native Populations in British Guiana.' Mission 

Field, July 1910, p. 201 ; April 1912, p. 106. 
' British Guiana.' Mission Field, July 1906, p. 209 ; May 1909, 

p. 143- 
' A New Mission in British Guiana.' Mission Field ^ 1909, p. 304. 
' Chinese in British Guiana.' Mission Field, Mar. 1906, p. 71. 
' Trinidad and its People.' Mission Field, Jan. 1906, p. 201. 
' East Indians in Trinidad.' Mission Field, Jan. 1908, p. 7. 
' Difficulties in Venezuela.' Mission Field, July 1909, p. 193; 

Oct. 1910, pp. 289, 294. 
' Antigua.' Mission Field, March 1910, p. 85. 

* Nevis.' Mission Field, Oct. 1907, p. 314. 



INDEX 



Abolition and Emancipation, 

35 
Akawois, 122 

America, 21, 55, 62, 82-88 
Antigua, 16, 24, 93, 111-17 
Antilles, 14, note, 16 
Arawaks, 18, 25, 45, 67, 123-24 
Austin, Bishop, 119 

Bahamas, 24, 65-82 

Bananas, 50, 83 

Baptists, 28 

Barbados, 24, 32, 89-110 

Brett, W. H., 120 

Buccaneers, 48 

Buxton, Fowell, 35, 41-42 

Caribs, 16, 18, 25, 123 
C.M.S., 57-58, 124 
Chinese, 126 
Churton, Bishop E. T., 75 ; 

Bishop, H. W., 76 
Clarkson, T., 37 
Cocoa, 51, 128 
Codrington College and its 

founder, 29, 90, ioo-7j 1^9 
Coleridge, Bishop, 95 
Colour question, oo, 78 
Columbus, Christopher, 1-23, 

24 
Courtenay, Bishop, 59 
Cromwell, Oliver, 28, 46, 47 

Difficulties, 53-54) 79, 87, 
115 



Disestablishment, 58, 73 
Dominica, 16, 24, 112 

Earthquakes and hurricanes, 

44, 62, 68, 73, 116 
Education, 72 [s.v. Codrington) 
Edwards, Bryan, 27, 31 
Eldorado, 25, 117 
Ellis, J. B., 50, 54 
Emancipation Day, 42, 57, 95 

Farrar, Bishop, 85-86 

Grenada and Grenadines, 24 
Guadaloupe, 16, 24 
Guiana, 83, 93, 117-27 

Hayti (or Hispaniola), 14, 17, 

20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 67 
Honduras, 22, 82-88 
Hornby, Bishop, 76 
House, a negro's, 69, 115 
Hutson, Bishop, 117 

Illegitimacy, 53-54 

Incidents, striking, 20, 23, 29- 
31, 38-39, 57, 63, 74-75, 81, 
So, 116, 124-25, 132-33 

Indians, East, 125-26 

' Indies ' and ' Indians,' 14 

Jamaica, 19, 22, 24, 43-64 
Josa, Archdeacon, 126 
Joscelyne, Bishop, 61 



135 



136 INDEX 

Kaietur Falls, ii8 



Las Casas, 13, 26 
Leeward Islands, 24 
Lipscomb, Bishop, 56, 59 



Martinique, 24 
Maroons, 46, 48 
Missionary, at home, 77 

at work, 50, 79, 93 

Mitchinson, Bishop, 98 
Montserrat, 16, 24, 112, 116 
Moravians, 28 



Nassau, diocese of, 65-82 
Nevis, 112 

Newton, J., 29-31, 37-3S 
Nuttall, Archbishop, 59-61, 
63 



Obeahism, 52-53, 113 
Objections to Missions, 33-34 



Rawle, Bishop, 103-6, 129-31 
Religion, negro, 55, 62-63, 94, 

113 
'' Robinson Crusoe," 18, note, 

121, 131-32 
Roman Catholics, 46, 84, 131- 

132 
Rupununi Mission, 124 



Salt-raking, 71 

St. Lucia and St. Vincent, 24 

St. Kitts, 24, 112 

Sharp, Granville, 35, 37 

Slavery and Slave-trade, 17, 

24-42, 49-50 
S.P.G., 29, 56, 5^. 85 
Sponge-gathering, 69 
Sugar, 25, 51, 93, 119, 12S 



Tobago, 131 

Trinidad, 18, note, 21, 24, 93, 

127-32 
Trotter, Canon, 132-33 



Urgency of opportunity, 87 



Panama, 22, 43, 51, 64, 84, Sj 
Problems, 53-54> S6, 115 

Venables, Bishop, 73 
Venezuela, 132-33 
Raleigh, Sir W., 49, 117, 128 Virgin Islands, 17, 24 



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